A Scandal in Belgravia
by spandrella
Summary: A novelization of season 2, episode 1 of Sherlock. Also includes canon notes and an essay by the author.


Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia

a novelization by

rk wright

" _The old wheel turns, the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again. I'll tell you one or two things about Moriarty which may interest you."_

 _-Sherlock Holmes,_ The Valley of Fear

 **Previously**

"Sorry, boys! I'm soooo changeable!," Moriarty said, letting himself back into the pool. "It is a weakness with me, but to be fair to myself, it is my _only_ weakness. You can't be allowed to continue. You just can't. I would try to convince you, but everything I have to say has already crossed your mind."

Sherlock looked at John. John looked at Sherlock. John could feel his heartbeat, not just in his chest, but throughout his whole body. He gave Sherlock a little nod. Do what you have to do, the nod said.

"Probably my answer's crossed yours," said Sherlock, levelling the gun at Moriarty. Then he slowly lowered the gun until it was pointed at the pile of Semtex that had been strapped to John, which was now lying next to the pool. John tensed all his muscles, not sure if he'd have time to react or if it would just all be over, but preparing to knock himself and Sherlock into the pool to try and escape the blast wave.

They were interrupted by the Bee Gees.

It took John a moment to realize that the song was coming from Moriarty, and that it must be a mobile phone. Even Sherlock glanced around in momentary confusion, and Moriarty closed his eyes in profound regret and embarrassment. "Do you mind if I get that?"

"No, please," said Sherlock casually. "You've got the rest of your life."

Moriarty touched the phone and the Bee Gees abruptly disappeared. "Hello? …Yes, of course it is, what do you want?" He mouthed 'Sorry' at Sherlock. Sherlock shrugged and mouthed, 'It's fine.' Moriarty turned away from them for a moment, turning idly on the spot in the stationary spin of mobile phone conversations, but when he turned back around his face was fury. " _Say that again!"_ he roared, his voice bouncing off the concrete walls. "Say that again," he said, forcing his voice into some semblance of control, "and know that if you are lying to me, I will find you, and I will _skin you._ " The last two words came out dark and oily. He listened for a moment, then said, "Wait," and took the phone away from his ear, blinking sadly at the concrete floor. "Sorry," he said to Sherlock, a peculiar look of concentration on his face. "Wrong day to die."

"Oh. Did you get a better offer?"

Moriarty looked down at his phone, then back up. John's legs were falling asleep, but he didn't move.

"You'll be hearing from me, Sherlock." Moriarty turned and walked away. "So if you have what you said you have," he said into the phone, "I'll make you rich. If you don't, I'll make you into shoes." He snapped his fingers, and pushed his way through a door, and was gone. Somewhere above their heads, there was the clunking noise of another door opening and closing, and the red lights disappeared.

John took some deep breaths. "What happened there?" he asked Sherlock.

Sherlock looked around slowly. "Someone changed his mind. The question is—who?"

 **Part One**

John woke up before Sherlock, for once, and was awake and at the desk in the sitting room when Sherlock drifted in, his dressing gown hanging open, hair even more rumpled than usual. "What're you typing?" he asked, flipping open the morning paper.

"Blog."

"About?"

"Us."

"You mean me."

"Why?"

"Well, you're typing a lot, and—" Sherlock was interrupted by the doorbell ringing and left to answer it without further explanation.

Over the coming months, John became aware of a gradual uptick in the number of people showing up at 221B Baker Street with problems, hoping that Sherlock would help them. Very few of these problems were criminal, at least on the face of it. Most people brought unambiguously criminal matters to the police these days, and Sherlock—secure in his belief that normal people were boring and that their problems were all obvious—had never seriously attempted to market himself to the broader London population, taking cases instead from Lestrade and a couple of other Scotland Yard DIs, colleagues from his school days, and occasionally Mycroft. But it turned out that lots of people had strange or inexplicable things happen, things that they didn't feel they could take to the police, but which they wanted to understand. In a crowd of eight million people all jostling and tripping over each other, every possible combination of events could be expected to take place, and there were plenty of problems which were striking and bizarre without being criminal.

Of course, most of the people who thought they had unique problems actually had quite mundane ones. The vast majority never made it into the blog; they barely made it into the flat, since Sherlock would throw them out the instant his interest flagged. There were quite a lot of people whose wives were "spending a very long time at the office," or who suspected their husbands of having affairs. Substantial offers of money did not persuade Sherlock to act if the problem wasn't interesting, as the team of men in suits who had had some files stolen discovered. And some people weren't able to convince Sherlock that their suspicions were grounded in any sort of reality, like the bartender who was convinced that his late aunt's ashes had not been returned to him in the urn he'd gotten from the crematorium, or the little girls who wanted Sherlock to ascertain whether their grandfather was in heaven now. John found himself doing a lot of apologizing.

Some cases caught Sherlock's interest, though. The case of the comic book nerds found its way onto John's blog (John called it "The Case of the Geek Interpreter," prompting Sherlock to ask why blog posts needed titles at all), as did the affair with the aluminium crutch.

"Do people actually read your blog?" Sherlock asked John one day, as they bent over a body in the mortuary. The body—a middle-aged woman with dyed blonde hair—was covered with red speckles that Molly and the other medical examiners couldn't identify, so Lestrade had come to 221B to get Sherlock. He was currently lurking silently in the corner, watching Sherlock and John examine the body.

"Where do you think our clients come from?"

"I have a website."

"In which you enumerate 240 different types of tobacco ash. Nobody's reading your website. Right, then…dyed blonde hair, no obvious cause of death except for these speckles, whatever they are."

Sherlock solved that one, though it took a few days, but the next time Lestrade came to Baker Street it wasn't so easy. He drove them out to the body, near the old Commercial Docks in Surrey, down a seldom-used access road to where a car sat abandoned. "There was a plane crash in Dusseldorf yesterday. Everyone dead."

"Suspected terrorist bomb. We do watch the news," said Sherlock

"You said 'boring' and turned over," John reminded him.

"According to the flight details, this man was checked in on board. Inside his coat he's got stubs from his boarding pass, napkins from the flight, special biscuits. Here's his passport, stamped in Berlin Airport. So this man should've died in a plane crash in Germany yesterday, but instead he's in a car boot in Surrey."

"Lucky escape?" said John.

"Any ideas?" asked Lestrade.

"Eight. So far." Sherlock bent over the body in the boot. "Okay, four ideas." He examined the boarding pass and the napkins, then looked up at the sky. "…Maybe two ideas."

But those two ideas led nowhere, and Sherlock was unsuccessful at unearthing any new information. John had never seen him stumped before, and as days and then weeks passed and all the trails went cold, it became clear that Sherlock had hit some kind of impasse. John found an unsuccessful Sherlock even more interesting, in some ways, than a successful one, so he started typing up a blog entry.

Sherlock, of course, caught him at it. "No no no, don't mention the unsolved ones!"

"People want to know you're human," John told him.

"Why?"

"Because they're interested."

"No they're not. Why are they?"

"Look at that," said John, pointing to the counter on his blog. "1,895."

"Sorry, what?"

"I reset that counter last night. This blog has had nearly 2,000 hits in the last eight hours. _This_ is your living, Sherlock. Not 240 different types of tobacco ash."

"243," said Sherlock quietly, then turned on a blowtorch that he was using in an experiment in the kitchen.

"So what's this one?" Sherlock asked John on their way out of the theatre, after another successful solution. "Belly Button Murders?"

"The Naval Treatment?" suggested John.

Sherlock groaned.

Lestrade met them in the hallway. "There's a lot of press outside, guys," he warned them.

"Well, they won't be interested in us," said Sherlock.

"Yeah, that was before you were an Internet phenomenon. Couple of them specifically wanted photographs of you two."

"For God's sake." Sherlock ducked into a props closet and grabbed the first two hats he saw. He handed John a tweed flat cap, pulled a cloth deerstalker down over his eyes, and turned up the collar of his coat to hide as much of his face as possible. "John, cover your face, and walk fast."

"Still," said Lestrade, clearly enjoying himself, "it's good for the public image? Big case like this?"

"I'm a private detective, the last thing I need is a public image."

John noted with some satisfaction that his blog titles were, in his opinion, at least better than what the papers came up with. "Hat-Man and Robin: The Web Detectives." "Sherlock Net 'Tec." "Sherlock Holmes: Net Phenomenon." Sherlock either did not notice that he had gone viral, or he didn't care, as long as cases found their way in front of him; but John found himself thinking of Moriarty at odd moments, in spite of Sherlock's evident lack of concern. Wondering how much of the blog Moriarty was reading. Wondering if Moriarty would decide when was the right day to die.

Though she was not the housekeeper, it distressed Mrs Hudson to find milk on the mantelpiece. She tsked at the state of the kitchen table—it was covered in beakers and acrid-smelling chemicals—and put the milk in the door of the fridge. She spotted something that looked like mouldy food, not a Sherlock experiment, and threw it out. The next bag she picked up was bloody. "Oh, dear. Thumbs," she said, dropping the bag back in the crisper. A noise behind her made her turn to see an overweight man, dripping with sweat and out of breath. "The door was…" He gasped, swaying in place, his eyes wide and wild. "The door was…" Then he crumpled in a dead faint, his face splatting against the linoleum.

"Boys!" called Mrs Hudson. "You've got another one!"

Half an hour later, after being revived by John and Mrs Hudson, the man sat in a chair, still looking slightly glassy-eyed.

"Tell us from the start," said Sherlock. "Don't be boring."

And so he did. He'd been driving down an isolated road in the countryside when his car stalled out. Furiously—"I'm not a patient man," he admitted—he got out of the car and opened the bonnet. He said he saw, but took no notice, of the man in the red anorak down by the stream.

Opening the bonnet was a silly thing to do, because he knew nothing about cars and all he could do was ascertain that there was still an engine in the thing. He got back in the car to try the ignition again, and the car backfired.

And then, he saw, the man next to the stream was gone. Bewildered, he walked into the field, and found the man lying flat on his back. Dead.

By the time Sherlock got his plan in motion and talked to Lestrade, the local police had already arrived and were gathering evidence. It took Lestrade a couple of phone calls to find the right Inspector—phone calls he made from his car, not wanting to do it in the office, feeling like a prat with all the cloak and dagger. "Carter," said the Inspector, when he came on the phone.

"Have you heard of Sherlock Holmes?" Lestrade asked him, without introducing himself.

"Who?"

"Well, you're about to meet him now. This is your case, it's entirely up to you, this is just friendly advice. But…give Sherlock five minutes on your crime scene, and listen to everything that he has to say. And as far as possible, try not to punch him." He hung up.

A car pulled up then and a uni poked his head in the window. "Sir," he said, turning to Carter, "this gentleman says he needs to speak to you—"

"Yes, I know," said Carter, going up to the car. "Sherlock Holmes?"

A man in an army jacket climbed out of the backseat. "John Watson," he said, shaking Carter's hand. "Are you set up for wi-fi?"

"You realize this is a tiny bit humiliating?" John asked Sherlock, once he had explained himself to Inspector Carter, and had connected to Sherlock over video chat.

"It's okay, I'm fine," said Sherlock, wrapped in one of the sheets from his bed. He picked up the laptop and his tea and went to the table in the sitting room. "Show me the stream?"

"I didn't mean for you."

"Look, this is a six. No point in my leaving the flat for anything less than a seven. We agreed. Now go back, show me the grass."

"When did we agree that?" asked John, crouching and aiming the laptop's camera at the ground.

"We agreed it yesterday. Stop! Closer!"

Instead of zooming closer, John spun the laptop round so he could look at Sherlock. "I wasn't even at home yesterday. I was in Dublin."

"It's hardly my fault you weren't listening." The doorbell sounded downstairs. "Shut up!" Sherlock shouted down at it.

"Do you just carry on talking when I'm away?"

"I don't know, how often are you away?" Sherlock asked. "Now show me the car that backfired."

John pointed the laptop back toward the road, where the man's car was still parked. "It's there."

"That's the one that made the noise, yes?"

"Yes. And if you're thinking gunshot, it wasn't one. He wasn't shot. He was killed by a single blow to the back of the head from a blunt instrument, which then magically disappeared, along with the killer. That's got to be an eight, at least."

"You've got two more minutes, then I want to know more about the driver," said Carter to Sherlock.

"Oh forget him, he's an idiot. Why else would he think himself a suspect?"

"I think he's a suspect," put in Carter.

"Pass me over," said Sherlock to John.

"All right," said John, "but there's a mute button, and I will use it." He pointed the laptop more towards Inspector Carter.

"Up a bit!" commanded Sherlock. "I'm not talking from down here."

John rolled his eyes, and asked Carter to just take the laptop.

"Having driven to an isolated location and successfully committed a crime without a single witness, why would he then call the police and consult a detective? Fair play?"

"He's trying to be clever. It's over-confidence."

"Did you see him? Morbidly obese, the undisguised halitosis of a single man living on his own, the right sleeve of an Internet porn addict, and the breathing pattern of an untreated heart condition. Low self-esteem, tiny IQ, and a limited life expectancy, and _you_ think he's an audacious criminal mastermind? Don't worry," he said, turning to his client on the sofa behind him, "this is just stupid."

"What did you say?" asked the client nervously. "Heart what?"

Sherlock turned back to Carter. "Go to the stream."

"What's in the stream?" asked Carter.

"Go and see."

"Sherlock!" said Mrs Hudson, coming upstairs, "You weren't answering your doorbell!" She was followed into the flat by two large, suited men.

"His room's through the back," said one suit to the other. "Get him some clothes."

"Who the hell are you?" asked Sherlock.

"Sorry. Mr Holmes, you're coming with us." He reached out and shut the lid of the laptop.

"I'm sorry," said John to Carter, "I've lost him. I dunno what—"

"Dr Watson?" asked a young PC. He was holding a mobile. "It's for you."

"Oh, thanks," John held his hand out for the phone, assuming it was Sherlock.

"No, sir. The, um. The helicopter." John turned to see a helicopter landing…yep, landing right in the middle of Inspector Carter's crime scene.

Suit #2 put a pile of clothes in front of Sherlock. Sherlock looked at him and did not move.

"Please, Mr Holmes," said Suit #1. "Where you're going, you'll want to be dressed."

Sherlock turned and looked him up and down. £700 suit. Unarmed. Manicured nails. Office worker. Right handed. Indoor worker. Small dog—no, three small dogs.

He regarded the man calmly. "I know exactly where I'm going," he informed him.

John, on the other hand, didn't realize where he was going until the helicopter was circling above it, closing in on the helipad. And even then, he still didn't believe it as he disembarked, or as he walked through the halls escorted by a tuxedoed security guard. It wasn't until he was shown into a room and asked to wait that he started to believe it.

The room was white and gilded and framed in crystal and chandeliers.

The carpet was rich, faded red.

The coffee table was perfectly placed in the centre of the room, perfectly polished to show off its perfectly inlaid wood trimmings.

The sofas were white and silk and accented with red pillows that matched the carpet.

On the coffee table, there was a small pile of neatly folded clothes.

On one end the sofa was Sherlock, barefoot, wrapped in a bed sheet.

And then John knew he was not dreaming, because of all the things he could ever possibly dream, Sherlock Holmes in Buckingham Palace clad in a sheet was nowhere on the list.

John raised his eyes inquiringly at Sherlock from the doorway.

Sherlock shook his head at John, indicating that he didn't want to talk about it.

John entered the room slowly. He sat on the opposite end of the sofa. After a long moment of consideration, he asked, "Are you wearing any pants?"

"No."

"Okay." He tried to go back to looking casually around, but his eye caught Sherlock's, and they both burst into helpless laughter. John took a long breath to dispel the giggles. "Buckingham Palace," he marvelled. "I am seriously fighting an impulse to steal an ashtray."

Sherlock chuckled.

"What are we doing here, Sherlock? Seriously, what?"

"I don't know."

"Here to see the Queen?"

Mycroft chose this moment to walk into the room. "Apparently, yes," said Sherlock, setting them both off again.

"For just once," said Mycroft in his infuriatingly patient tone, "can you two behave like grown ups?"

"We solve crimes, I blog about it, and he forgets his pants," John reminded Mycroft. "I wouldn't hold out much hope."

"I was in the middle of a case, Mycroft," said Sherlock.

"What, the hiker and the backfire? I glanced at the police report. Bit obvious, surely?"

"Transparent."

"Time to move on, then." Mycroft held out Sherlock's clothes. Sherlock looked at them but did not move. Mycroft sighed. "We are in Buckingham Palace. The very heart of the British nation. Sherlock Holmes, _put your trousers on_."

"What for?"

"Your client."

"And my client is?" asked Sherlock, standing.

"Illustrious in the extreme," said another man, an equerry, as he entered the room. His suit looked even more expensive than Mycroft's, "And remaining, I'll have to inform you, entirely anonymous." He held out his hand to Mycroft. "Mycroft."

"Harry," said Mycroft, putting down Sherlock's clothes and returning the handshake, "May I just apologize for the state of my little brother?"

"A full time occupation, I imagine," said Harry, eyeing Sherlock's sheet. "And this must be Dr John Watson. Formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers." He shook John's hand as well. "My employer is a tremendous fan of your blog."

"Your employer?"

"Particularly enjoyed the one about the aluminium crutch. And Mr Holmes the Younger. You look taller in your photographs."

"I take the precaution of a good coat and a short friend," said Sherlock, scanning the Equerry up and down, observing that he was a dog lover, a horseback rider, an early riser, had gone to public school, slept on the left side of the bed, had kids, didn't smoke, that his mother was Welsh, he read a lot, and drank tea. "Mycroft, I don't do anonymous clients. I'm used to mystery at one end of my cases. Both ends is too much work. Good morning." He started to walk away.

Mycroft stepped on the dragging end of the sheet, forcing Sherlock to stop short and make an undignified grab before the sheet fell off his body entirely. "This is a matter of national importance," said Mycroft, and for the first time his voice had an edge to it. "Grow up!"

"Get off my sheet!" said Sherlock, tugging on it.

"Or what?"

"Or I'll just walk away."

"I'll let you."

"Boys," said John, quietly. "Please. Not here."

"Who," said Sherlock fiercely, "Is. My. Client?"

The infuriating calm had returned to Mycroft's voice. "Take a look at where you're standing and make a deduction. You are to be engaged by the highest in the land. Now for God's sake," –the ice in his voice broke again— "put your clothes on."

Ten minutes later, Sherlock arrived back on the couch, wearing trousers, shirt, jacket, socks, and shoes. Mycroft, his dignity returned, had a tea tray. "I'll be mother," he said, pouring.

"And there is a whole childhood in a nutshell," said Sherlock.

"My employer," said Harry quickly, "has a problem."

"A matter has come to light of an extremely delicate and potentially criminal nature," said Mycroft. "And in this hour of need, dear brother, your name has arisen."

"Why? You have a police force, of sorts. Even a marginally-secret service. Why come to me?"

"People do come to you for help, don't they, Mr Holmes?" asked Harry.

"Not, to date, anyone with a navy."

"This is a matter of highest security, and therefore, of trust," said Mycroft.

"You don't trust your own secret service?" asked John.

"Naturally not. They all spy on people for money," said Mycroft.

"I do think we have a timetable," said the Equerry pointedly.

"Yes, of course," said Mycroft. He snapped open his briefcase. "What do you know about this woman?" he asked, passing Sherlock a photograph.

Sherlock looked at the long-lens shot of a woman with dark hair and intense eyes. "Nothing whatsoever."

"Then you should be paying more attention. She's been the centre of two political scandals in the last year, and recently ended the marriage of a prominent novelist by having an affair with both participants separately."

"You know I don't concern myself with trivia. Who is she?"

"Irene Adler. Professionally known as The Woman."

"Professionally?" asked John.

"There are many names for what she does. She prefers Dominatrix."

"Dominatrix," said Sherlock thoughtfully.

"Don't be alarmed," said Mycroft with a smile. "It's to do with sex."

"Sex doesn't alarm me."

Mycroft gave a small laugh. "How would you know? She provides, shall we say, recreational scolding for those who enjoy that sort of thing and are prepared to pay for it. These are all from her website." He handed Sherlock a small stack of papers, printouts from a webpage, with descriptions of services and photographs of Adler in various stages of undress, wielding a riding crop and wearing high heels.

"And I assume this Adler woman has some compromising photographs?"

"Very quick, Mr Holmes," said Harry.

"Hardly difficult deduction. Photographs of whom?"

Mycroft and Harry cast glances at each other. "A person of significance to my employer," said Harry after a moment. "We prefer not to say any more at this time."

"You can't tell us anything?" asked John, taking a sip of tea as Sherlock dropped the photos on the coffee table in annoyance.

"I can tell you it's a young person," said Mycroft. "A young female person."

"How many photographs?" asked Sherlock.

"A considerable number, apparently."

"Do Miss Adler and this young female person appear in these photographs together?"

"Yes, they do."

"In, I assume, any number of compromising scenarios."

"An imaginative range, we are assured."

"John, you might want to put that cup back in your saucer now," said Sherlock. John looked down at the cup that was still in front of his mouth, and put it back in the saucer.

"Can you help us, Mr Holmes?" asked Harry.

"How?"

"You can take the case."

"What case? Pay her. Now. And in full. As Miss Adler remarks in her masthead, know when you are beaten."

"She doesn't want anything," corrected Mycroft. "She got in touch. She informed us that the photographs existed. She indicated that she had no intention to use them to extort either money or favour."

A slow smile crept across Sherlock's face, his interest caught at last. "Oh, a power play. A power play with the most powerful family in Britain. Now, that _is_ a dominatrix. This is getting rather fun, isn't it?"

"Sherlock," said John warningly.

"Where is she?"

"In London, currently," said Mycroft. "She's staying—"

"Text me the details. I'll be in touch by the end of the day." Sherlock stood and picked up his trench coat, which he'd been rather pleased to see the man in the suit bring along.

"Do you really think you'll have news by then?" asked Harry.

"No, I think I'll have the photographs."

"One can only hope you're as good as you seem to think," said Harry.

Sherlock regarded him flatly for a moment, then turned to Mycroft. "I'll need some equipment, of course."

"Anything you require," said Mycroft. "I'll have it sent ov—"

"Can I have a box of matches?" Sherlock asked Harry.

"I'm sorry?"

"Or your cigarette lighter, either will do," said Sherlock, holding out his hand.

"I don't smoke."

"No, I know you don't, but your employer does."

Harry stared at him, then slowly pulled a cigarette lighter out of his pocket. "We have kept a lot of people successfully in the dark about this little fact, Mr Holmes." He put the lighter in Sherlock's hand.

"I'm not the Commonwealth."

"And that's as modest as he gets," interrupted John. He nodded at Harry as he followed Sherlock out. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Laters," called Sherlock, slightly sarcastically, over his shoulder.

"Okay," asked John in the cab on the way back to Baker Street, "the smoking. How did you know?"

"The evidence was right under your nose, John. As ever, you see but do not observe."

"Observe what?"

Sherlock reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a heavy, crystal dish. "Ashtray."

They returned to Baker Street, where John ate a sandwich and tried to draft a blog entry. Sherlock went to his bedroom and, shortly thereafter, articles of clothes started flying across—and out of—his doorway.

"What are you doing?" called John.

"Going into battle, John! I need the right armour!" He appeared momentarily wearing a PC jacket, then tore it off and disappeared again.

When he re-emerged fifteen minutes later, though, he looked perfectly ordinary in his usual trench coat and scarf. They left the flat and hailed a taxi and started threading their way back towards Hyde Park and the Palace.

"So," said John, "What's the plan?"

"We know her address."

"Ring her doorbell?"

"Exactly. Just here, please," he said to the cabby.

"You didn't even change your clothes."

"Then it's time to add a splash of colour," said Sherlock, getting out of the cab and leading John down an alley. He pulled off his scarf and stuffed it in his coat pocket.

"Are we here?" asked John.

"Two streets away, but this'll do."

"For what?"

"Punch me in the face."

"Punch you?" John blinked at him.

"Yes. Punch me. In the face. Didn't you hear me?"

"I always hear 'punch me in the face' when you're speaking, but it's usually subtext."

"Oh, for God's sakes," said Sherlock, and he slapped John—hard—on the cheek, knocking him sideways. He barely had time to brace himself before John, on his way back up, caught him on the face with a haymaker blow that knocked him flat. "Thank you," he said, getting to his feet, "that was— _oof._ " John caught him round the waist and threw him to the cobblestones.

Sherlock was so startled that it didn't occur to him to fight back. "Okay," he said, trying to loosen John's headlock, "I think we're done now, John."

"You want to remember, Sherlock," said John furiously, "I was a soldier. I killed people."

"You were a doctor!"

"I had bad days!"

When the door buzzer rang, Kate—who had been told by Irene what to expect—went to answer it. She pushed the button that activated the camera aimed at the front porch and the speaker system. "Hello?" she said, pushing the button.

He was a dish, she'd give him that. And his cheek was bleeding. "Sorry to disturb you," he said with a hitch in his voice, "but I've just been attacked."

There was no camera on her side, so Kate allowed herself a smile. Irene was right, he was clever.

"Um, um, um, I think they—they took my wallet, and, um, my phone—" he sounded like he was about to break into tears. "Please, could you help me?"

"I could phone the police, if you want?"

"Thank you, thank you, could you please?" He took a step back from the camera and she saw that he was wearing a vicar's collar. "Would you mind if I just waited here? Just until they come? Thank you, thank you so much." His face crumpled, and he pressed a handkerchief to his bleeding face.

Kate put on her sober face and buzzed him in. He entered, still crying and thanking her, and was followed by a man with short-cropped hair and a black jacket. "I saw it all happen," he explained to Kate, "It's okay, I'm a doctor. Have you got a first aid kit?"

"In the kitchen."

"Thank you."

Kate left Sherlock resting on the couch in the sitting room while she led John to the kitchen for the first aid kit and pretended to tell Irene what had happened. Irene headed down to the sitting room.

"I'm sorry to hear that you've been hurt," she called from the hallway, "I don't think that Kate caught your name." She paused in the doorway.

"I'm so sorry," he said, "I'm—" He stopped.

She was completely, utterly, and unashamedly naked.

"It's always hard to remember an alias when you've had a fright," she told him, "Isn't it?"

He said nothing. She pulled off his vicar's collar. "There," she said. "Now we're both defrocked…Mr Sherlock Holmes." She gave him a smile.

Sherlock looked at her face. "Miss Adler, I presume."

"Look at those cheekbones. I could cut myself slapping that face. Would you like me to try?" She caught the vicar collar between her bared teeth.

"Right, this should do it," said John, appearing in the doorway with a first aid kit and a pie plate full of water. He stopped dead at the sight of Irene standing over Sherlock, his vicar collar still in her mouth. He took a moment to think. Then: "I've missed something, haven't I?"

Irene was also still for a moment. Then she took the vicar collar from her mouth. "Please," she said to John, "Sit down. If you'd like some tea, I can call the maid."

"I had some at the Palace," said Sherlock. This was no longer a game of deception.

"I know," said Irene, folding herself up in an armchair so that she was mostly covered.

"Clearly."

She did not reply, and they looked appraisingly at each other for a long moment.

"I had tea, too, at the Palace. If anyone's interested," said John, to break the silence.

Neither of them was. Sherlock was watching Irene with rising consternation. He could not see anything about her. Nothing.

He looked at John. John had been wearing his shirt for two days, had been out last night with Stamford, had a date tonight, used an electric razor, hadn't phoned his sister, and had just bought a new toothbrush.

He looked back at Irene. Nothing. She might as well be a mannequin, brand new, who had never modelled a single stitch of clothing.

"Do you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr Holmes?" she asked him.

He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

"However hard you try, it's always a self-portrait."

"You think I'm a vicar with a bleeding face?"

"I think you're damaged, delusional, and believe in a higher power," she informed him. "In your case, it's yourself." She leaned forward. "Somebody loves you. If I had to punch that face, I'd avoid your nose and teeth too."

"Ha ha," said John humourlessly. "Could you put something on, please? Anything at all. A napkin."

"Why?" she asked John. "Are you feeling exposed?"

"I don't think John knows where to look," said Sherlock.

"No, I think he knows exactly where," she stood and faced John. "Not sure about you," she said to Sherlock as he stood up and handed her his trench coat to put on.

"If I wanted to look at naked women I'd borrow John's laptop."

John looked at him. "You do borrow my laptop."

"I confiscate it," Sherlock corrected him.

"Well, never mind. We've got better things to talk about," said Irene. "Now tell me, I need to know: How was it done?" She sat down on the couch and pulled off her high heels.

"What?" asked Sherlock.

"The hiker with the bashed-in head. How was he killed?"

Sherlock could not conceal his surprise. "That's not why I'm here."

"No, you're here for the photographs. But that's never going to happen. And since we're here just chatting anyway—"

"That story's not been on the news yet, how do you know about it?" asked John.

"I know one of the policemen. Well, I know what he likes."

"Oh," said John. "And you like policemen?"

"I like detective stories," she told him. "And detectives. Brainy's the new sexy."

"Zizzacar—" said Sherlock inarticulately. He blinked and took a breath. John stared at him. "The _position_ of the car relative to the hiker at the time of the backfire. That and the fact that the death blow was to the back of the head. That's all you need to know."

"Okay, tell me. How was he murdered?"

"He wasn't." Sherlock had got his feet back under him, figuratively speaking, and was enjoying being the one with the explanation again.

"You don't think it was murder?"

"I know it wasn't."

"How?"

"The same way that I know the victim was an excellent sportsman, recently returned from foreign travel, and that the photographs I'm looking for are in this room."

"Okay, but how?" she sounded, against her will, slightly—very slightly—impressed.

"So they are in this room?" Sherlock smiled. "Thank you. John, man the door, let no one in."

John got up and left, closing the door behind him. Once in the hall, he picked up a magazine from a hall table and rolled it into a tube.

Irene was about to get up and find Kate, so that John wouldn't be in the house unattended, but Sherlock started talking again and she listened in spite of herself. "Two men, alone in the countryside, several yards apart, and one car."

"Oh. I thought you were looking for the photos now," she said.

"Oh, no," said Sherlock. "Looking takes ages. I'm just going to find them. But you're moderately clever and we've got a moment so let's pass the time." He had started a slow circuit of the room when she'd asked about the motorist, but now he stopped pacing and turned to face her. "Two men, a car, and nobody else."

She could almost see it, a broad valley with a stream running through the middle of it, clouds of dancing midges, and a car stalled out on a back country road, the owner beating the steering wheel in frustration.

"Driver's trying to fix his engine, getting nowhere," continued Sherlock. "And the hiker's taking a moment, looking at the sky. Watching the birds? Any moment now, something's going to happen—what?"

"The hiker's going to die."

"No. That's the result. What's going to _happen_?"

She blinked at him. "I don't understand."

Sherlock rolled his eyes at her. "Well, try to."

Steel crept into her voice. "Why."

"Because you cater to the whims of the pathetic and take your clothes off to make an impression. Stop boring me and _think_. It's the new sexy," he added acidly.

She had it now. "The car's going to backfire."

"There's going to be a loud noise," agreed Sherlock.

"So what?"

"Oh, noises are important. Noises can tell you everything. For instance—" Right on cue, the smoke alarm went off, startling Irene out of her reverie. Well done, John, thought Sherlock. Irene looked toward the door, where the noise was coming from, and then—the ornate silver mirror hanging over the fireplace.

"Thank you," said Sherlock. "On hearing a smoke alarm, a mother would look towards her child. Amazing how fire exposes our priorities." He examined the mirror's attachment to the wall and then felt with his fingers along the bottom edge of the mantel. His fingers felt the seamed profile of a button flush with the contour of the mantel and he pushed. There was a slight hum and the mirror slid vertically, revealing the safe set into the wall. Sherlock looked at her. "I really hope you don't have a baby in here," he told her. He raised his voice. "John, you can turn it off now." There was no answer. "I said you can turn it off now!"

John, out in the hall, was beating the smouldering magazine against a dresser to scatter and extinguish the flames. "Give me a minute!" he called. He heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and turned to see, not the pretty redhead who'd answered the door, but two men in grey suits carrying guns. One of them shot out the smoke alarm while the other turned his gun on John, who raised his hands in surrender. "Thank you," he said, in the newly arrived silence.

Sherlock, meanwhile, was examining the keypad on the safe. "Hmmm," he mused. "You should always use gloves with these things, you know. Heaviest oil deposits always on the first key used. That's quite clearly the 3. But after that, the sequence is almost impossible to read. I see from the make that it's a six digit code. Can't be a birthday, no disrespect, but clearly you were born in the 80s. 8's barely used."

"I'd tell you the code right now," she interjected. "You know what? I already have." He turned and looked at her, eyebrows knitting for just a moment. She held his gaze, wide-eyed and guileless. "Think," she said sarcastically.

The door burst open then, jarring Sherlock's train of thought. "Hands behind your head, on the floor, keep it still!" commanded one of the men, pointing his gun at Sherlock. He had an American accent.

"Sorry, Sherlock," said John, as the second man, his gun trained on the back of John's head, shoved John onto his knees.

"Miss Adler, on the floor," said the American, pushing her to her knees.

"Did you want me on the floor, too?" Sherlock asked the American, his hands held above his head in surrender.

"No, sir," said the American, his gun pointed at Sherlock's sternum. "I want you to open the safe."

"American. Interesting," said Sherlock, not moving. "Why would you care?"

"The safe. Now. Please."

"I don't know the code."

"We've been listening. She said she told you."

"If you've been listening, you'll know she didn't."

"I'm assuming I missed something. From your reputation, I'm assuming you didn't, Mr Holmes."

"For god's sake," said John angrily, " _She's_ the one who knows the code. Ask _her_."

"Yes, sir. She also knows the code that automatically calls the police and sets off the burglar alarm. I've learned not to trust this woman."

"Mr Holmes doesn't—" started Irene.

"Shut up. One more word out of you, just one, and I will decorate that wall with the insides of your head. That, for me, will not be a hardship. Mr Archer, at the count of three, shoot Dr Watson."

"What?" burst out John.

"I don't know the code," Sherlock repeated, as Archer pulled back the hammer on the gun and pressed it against John's skull.

"One," said the American.

"I don't. Know. The code."

"Two."

"She didn't tell me, I don't know it!"

"I'm prepared to believe you any second now," said the American. Sherlock turned toward Irene for just a moment, who looked down and away from him.

"Three."  
"No, stop!" shouted Sherlock. He turned, slowly, towards the keypad and looked at it, thinking. Hoping he was right.

32, he tapped.

When he pushed the 2, and then the 4, Irene smiled. She knew he had it.

34.

The safe's lock clicked.

"Thank you, Mr Holmes. Open it, please."

He turned the handle on the safe, and as he did so he turned his head just enough to look at Irene out of the corner of his eye. She turned her head away, and he understood.

He said the first thing that popped in his head that he knew John would understand. "Vatican Cameos!" he said, and as he swung open the safe door, he ducked. At the same time, John threw himself to the floor. The gun inside the safe, booby trapped to fire when the safe was opened, hit Mr Archer, who had been standing over John.

Irene clasped her hands together and used their combined force to drive her elbow into her captor's groin. Sherlock, having spun down and around when he ducked, grabbed the American's gun out of his hand and, in a single swift movement, clubbed him across the jaw with the butt of the gun. Irene had grabbed her captor's gun and they had now switched places, him kneeling on the floor, her pointing the gun at his head.

Sherlock looked at her. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," she replied, crashing the gun on the side of the man's temple. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Sherlock reached into the safe and pocketed what Irene had stashed under the booby trap gun.

John bent over to check on Archer. "He's dead," he said, standing up and taking the dead man's gun.

"Thank you," said Irene. "You were very observant."

"Observant?" asked John.

"I'm flattered," said Irene to Sherlock.

"Don't be," Sherlock told her.

"Flattered?" asked John.

"There'll be more of them," said Sherlock, heading for the door. "They'll be keeping an eye on the building." John followed him out, tucking Archer's gun in the rear waistband of his jeans. Irene went to the safe.

"We should call the police," said John, following Sherlock onto the front porch.

"Yes," said Sherlock, raising the pistol and firing five shots into the air. "On their way," he told John, and went back inside.

"For God's sake—"

"Oh shut up, it's quick," said Sherlock. "Check the rest of the house, see how they got in." He returned to Irene in her sitting room, pulling her phone out of his pocket. "Well," he told her. "That's the knighthood in the bag."

"And that's mine," said Irene, holding her hand out.

Sherlock turned the phone on. I AM LOCKED, it told him, showing him four blanks. "All the photographs are on here, I presume?"

"I have copies, of course."

"No you don't. You'll have permanently disabled any kind of uplink or connection. Unless the contents of this phone are provably unique, you wouldn't be able to sell them."

"Who said I'm selling?"

"Why would they be interested?" asked Sherlock, indicating the dead and unconscious men on the floor. "Whatever's on the phone, it's clearly not just photographs."

"That cameraphone is my life, Mr Holmes," she told him. "I'd die before I'd let you take it. It's my protection."

"It was," said Sherlock, putting the phone in his pocket and going out to the hall, where John was calling.

In a bedroom upstairs, John had found Kate unconscious on the floor, as well as an open window next to the fire escape. "They must've come in this way," said John, gesturing to the window, as Sherlock came in.

"Clearly."

Irene followed Sherlock into the room. "She's all right, she's just out cold," John told her.

"Well, God knows she's used to that," said Irene. "There's a back door. Better check it, Dr Watson."

John glanced at Sherlock, who nodded. "…Sure," said John, leaving the room.

"You're very calm," said Sherlock.

She looked at him questioningly.

"Well, your booby trap did just kill a man."

"He would've killed me. It was self-defence in advance." She touched his arm and, when he looked down at it, reached around his back and jabbed a hypodermic needle into his other arm.

He staggered, suddenly dizzy. "What is that, what—"

She smacked his cheek, and he fell to the ground. "Give it to me," she said. "Now. Give it to me."

He tried to get back on his feet, but couldn't feel the ground. "No," he said, as his vision slid sideways.

"Give it to me." She stood over him, holding out her hand for the cameraphone.

"No." He got halfway up but fell back to his knees.

"Oh, for goodness sake," she said, picking up a riding crop from the vanity. "Drop it." And when he didn't, she swatted him with all her strength. "I—said— _drop it_." He fell to the floor, and the phone fell out of his fist at last. "Thank you, dear," she said, picking it up. "Now tell that sweet little posh thing the pictures are safe with me. They're not for blackmail. Just for insurance. Besides, I might want to see her again."

Sherlock tried to get up, but could barely breathe.

"Oh, no no no," said Irene, pushing him back to the ground with the riding crop. "It's been a pleasure. Don't spoil it. This is how I want to you to remember me." She stroked his cheek with the leather. "The woman who beat you."

Darkness was folding in over Sherlock's vision. "Good night, Mr Sherlock Holmes," she told him, from very far away.

John came back in the room. "Jesus," he said, when he saw Sherlock on the ground and Irene standing over him. "What're you doing?"

"He'll sleep for a few hours. Make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit, it makes for a very unattractive corpse," she said, heading for the window.

"What is this, what've you given him?" asked John, picking the syringe up from the floor where Irene had dropped it. "Sherlock?"

"He'll be fine. I've used it on loads of my friends."

John ignored her. "Sherlock, can you hear me?"

"I was wrong about him," mused Irene. "he did know where to look."

"For what? What're you talking about?"

"The key code to my safe."

"What was it?"

"Shall I tell him?" she asked Sherlock, who could not reply. "My measurements," she said to John, then she was gone, out the window, still barefoot and wearing Sherlock's trench coat.

Sherlock tried to get up but he was falling, falling, falling. He landed in a car in a country lane.

"I've got it," Irene said to him, leaning in the window. He tried to get up but couldn't move, like in bad dreams where you keep trying to escape, but all you can do is watch your nightmare overtake you. "Shh, no," said Irene to him, "don't get up. I'll do the talking." She walked towards the rear of the car. "So the car's about to backfire. And the hiker, he's staring at the sky. Now, you said he could be watching birds, but he wasn't, was he?" Now Sherlock was standing in the middle of the field, unable to speak, even in the dream. "He was watching another kind of flying thing. The car backfires and the hiker turns to look, which was his big mistake. By the time the driver looks up, the hiker's already dead. What he doesn't see is what killed him, because it's already been washed downstream. An accomplished sportsman recently returned from foreign travel with…a boomerang." She paused. "You got that from one look? Definitely the new sexy."

"I…I…" The field was disappearing. Irene was farther away.

"Hush now, it's okay. I'm only returning your coat."

Sherlock sat up. He was in his own bed. "John?" he called, his tongue thick and clumsy. "John!" He tried to stand up, but his legs tangled in the bedclothes and he fell to the floor.

John appeared in the doorway. "You okay?"

"How'd I get here?"

"Well, I don't suppose you remember much, you weren't making a lot of sense. I should warn you, I think Lestrade filmed you on his phone."

"Where is she?" asked Sherlock, staggering to his feet. His head was spinning.

"Where is who?"

"The woman, that woman."

"What woman?"

Sherlock could not summon words through his brain. " _The_ woman! The woman woman!"

"Oh, Irene Adler. She got away. No one saw her. She wasn't here, Sherlock," he added, as Sherlock checked behind curtains and threw open his closet door before everything went spinny and he fell back down.

"What're you—No, back to bed," said John, grabbing Sherlock under his arms and pushing him toward the bed. Sherlock flopped face-first onto the mattress. "You'll be fine in the morning, just sleep."

"Of course I'll be fine I am fine. I'm absolutely fine."

"Yes, you're great. I'll be next door if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

"No reason at all," muttered John, closing the door behind him.

Sherlock was almost out when a sighing noise roused him. A woman's voice. A very…happy sigh. In his bedroom. He sat up.

His trench coat was hanging from the back of his door. He pushed himself off the bed and, leaning against the wall, made his way to his coat and pulled his phone out of the pocket. He had a text from a blocked number.

Till next time, Mr Holmes.

Mycroft showed up the next morning during breakfast. Sherlock explained that they didn't have the photographs. "But don't worry, the photographs are perfectly safe."

"In the hands of a fugitive sex worker."

"She's not interested in blackmail, she wants…protection, for some reason. I take it you stood down the police investigation into the shooting at her house?"

"How can we do anything while she has the photographs? Our hands are tied."

Sherlock did not look up from his paper. "She'd applaud your choice of words. Do you see how this works? That cameraphone is her get-out-of-jail-free card. You have to leave her alone." His face twisted sardonically. "Treat her like royalty, Mycroft."

"Though," said John, looking up from his plate, "not the way she treats royalty."

The conversation was interrupted by a woman's orgasmic sigh. John looked at Sherlock. "What was that?"

"Text," said Sherlock casually, not looking up.

"But what was that noise?"

Sherlock ignored this. He got up and took his phone off the mantle. "You knew that there were other people after her too, Mycroft, before you sent John and I in there. CIA-trained killers, at an excellent guess." He checked his texts.

Good morning, Mr Holmes.

"Yeah, thanks for that, Mycroft," put in John.

"It's a disgrace," said Mrs Hudson, coming in with a plate of breakfast for Sherlock. "Sending your little brother into danger like that. Family is all we have in the end, Mycroft Holmes."

"Oh, shut up, Mrs Hudson," said Mycroft, annoyed.

"Mycroft!" burst out Sherlock, at the same moment that John shouted, "Oy!"

Mrs Hudson stared at him. Mycroft's face looked like he had just swallowed something unpleasant. After a long moment, he twisted his face into something like a smile, and regained his composure. "Apologies," he said to Mrs Hudson.

"Thank you," she said, and turned to go.

"Though do, in fact, shut up," said Sherlock. Sherlock's phone groaned again.

"It's a bit rude, that noise, isn't it?" said Mrs Hudson.

"There's nothing you can do and nothing she will do, as far as I can see," said Sherlock, opening the newest text message.

Feeling better?

"I can put maximum surveillance on her."

"Why bother? You can follow her on Twitter. I believe her username is TheWhipHand."

"Yes," smiled Mycroft as his cell phone rang. "Most amusing. Excuse me." He answered the phone and strolled out onto the landing for his conversation.

"Why's your phone make that noise?" John asked Sherlock.

"What noise?"

"That noise. The one it just made."

"It's a text alert. It means I've got a text."

"Your texts don't usually make that noise."

"Well, somebody got hold of the phone and, apparently as a joke, personalized their text alert noise." Sherlock kept his eyes fixed on his newspaper.

"So every time they text you…" Sherlock's phone groaned on cue to finish John's sentence.

"It would seem so," said Sherlock.

"Could you turn that phone down a bit? At my time of life!" said Mrs Hudson from the kitchen.

"See, I'm wondering who could've got hold of your phone, because it would've been in your coat, wouldn't it?"

Sherlock's face was hidden behind the newspaper. "I'll leave you to your deductions."

"I'm not stupid, you know."

"Where do you get that idea?"

"Bond Air is go," said Mycroft, still talking on his phone as he came back in the room. "That's decided. Check with the Coventry lot. Talk later." He hung up.

"What else does she have?" Sherlock asked. Mycroft just looked at him. "Irene Adler. The Americans wouldn't be interested in her for a couple of compromising photographs. There's more. Much more." He stood up to look levelly at Mycroft. "Something big's coming, isn't it?"

"Irene Adler," said Mycroft deliberately, "is no longer any concern of yours. From now on, you will stay out of this."

"Oh," said Sherlock softly, "will I?"

"Yes, Sherlock. You will. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a long and arduous apology to make to a very old friend."

"Do give him my love," said Sherlock, picking up his violin and bowing out the first stanzas of "God Save the Queen" as Mycroft went downstairs and out the door.

 **Part Two**

 **Six Months Later**

It was almost too picture perfect on Baker Street. Snow had been falling since late afternoon, settling in the windows and frosting the Christmas lights, paving the road and the sidewalk in peaceful white. Sherlock had bowed to Mrs Hudson's repeated pleas and was playing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" on his violin while they waited for more party guests to arrive. Lestrade was already there, looking mildly surprised at the sight of Sherlock doing anything artistic.

Sherlock finished with a flourish and gave a little bow that looked like it came straight from primary school music recitals. Lestrade clapped, one-handed, against the glass he was holding in his other hand.

"Quite good," said John, with a beer in one hand and tea in the other.

"I wish you could've worn the antlers," said Mrs Hudson, smiling at the thought.

"Some things are best left to the imagination, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock told her.

John handed Mrs Hudson her tea. John's girlfriend followed, and offered Sherlock the tray she was carrying. "No, thank you, Sarah," he said.

Her face fell. Behind her back, John's eyebrows shot alarmingly high. "No no no no no," John said to her, trying to cover. "He's not good with names."

"No, no, I can get this," said Sherlock. "Sarah was the doctor and then there was the one with the spots and then the one with the nose and then…who was after the boring teacher?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "Nobody."

Sherlock's face lit with a bright smile. "Jeanette! Process of elimination." As John pulled Jeanette away, Sherlock saw Molly coming up the stairs. "Oh, dear lord," he said to himself.

"Hello everyone!" said Molly. "Sorry, hello. It said on the door to just come up." Everyone chorused hello to her as she put down her gift bags and took off her coat.

"Everybody's saying hello to each other again. Wonderful," muttered Sherlock to himself.

"Holy Mary," said John, when Molly took off her coat and he saw the black sheath dress that she was wearing.

"Everyone having their Christmas drinkies, then?" Molly asked.

"No stopping them, apparently," said Sherlock, sitting down and opening his laptop.

"It's the one day of the year where the boys have to be nice to me so it's almost worth it," said Mrs Hudson to Molly with a smile.

"John," said Sherlock.

"Hmm?"

"The count on your blog. It still says 1,895."

"Oh, no!" said John, leaning over Sherlock's shoulder to look at the blog. "Christmas is cancelled."

"You've got a photograph of me wearing that hat."

"People like the hat."

"No they don't. What people?"

"How's the hip?" Molly asked Mrs Hudson.

"It's atrocious, but thanks for asking."

"I've seen much worse. But then, I do post mortems."

Mrs Hudson tilted her head a bit sideways.

"Oh, god, sorry," said Molly, having just heard what she'd said.

"Don't make jokes, Molly," said Sherlock.

Lestrade handed Molly a glass of wine. "Thank you," she said, smiling. "I wasn't expecting to see you. I thought you were going to be in Dorset for Christmas."

"That's first thing in the morning, me and the wife. We're back together, it's all sorted."

"No, she's sleeping with the PE teacher," said Sherlock absently, not looking away from the computer.

"And John," said Molly, "I hear you're off to your sister's, is that right?"

"Yeah."

"Sherlock was complaining."

"For the first time ever she's cleaned up her act. She's off the booze. Shut up, Sherlock," said John, as Sherlock opened his mouth.

"I see you've got a new boyfriend, Molly," said Sherlock instead. "And you're serious about him."

"Sorry, what?" asked Molly.

"In fact, you're seeing him this very night and giving him a gift."

"Take a day off, Sherlock," said John quietly.

"Sherlock, have a drink," said Lestrade, putting a glass down next to him.

"Oh, come on," said Sherlock, refusing to be diverted. "Surely you've all seen the present at the top of the bag. Perfectly wrapped with a bow. The others are slapdash at best. Someone special, then. Shade of red echoes her lipstick, either an unconscious association or one that she's deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has love on her mind. The fact that she's serious about him is clear from the fact that she's giving him a gift at all. That all suggests long-term hopes, however forlorn. And that she's seeing him tonight is evident from her makeup and what she's wearing. Obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and…breasts…" He had opened the present's label and seen that it was addressed to _Dearest Sherlock, Love Molly xxx_. Sherlock stopped dead and swallowed.

Molly looked like she wanted to fall through the floor. "You always say such horrible things," she said softly. "Every time."

Sherlock could feel all of their eyes on him. Mrs Hudson mutely begging him to do something to fix it, John trying to glare him into silence.

"Always," Molly repeated, almost to herself.

Sherlock turned to go away, then turned back. "I am sorry. Forgive me." He wasn't looking at her, but past her. He looked abashed in a way that he almost never did. "Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper," he said quietly, and leaned in and kissed her cheek.

A woman's orgasmic groan broke the silence.

Molly's mortification increased. "No, that wasn't—I didn't—"

"It was me," said Sherlock.

"Really?" said Lestrade.

"My phone," clarified Sherlock, pulling it out of his pocket.

"Fifty-seven?" asked John.

"Sorry, what?" asked Sherlock.

Mantelpiece.

"Fifty-seven of those texts. The ones I've heard."

"Thrilling that you've been counting," said Sherlock, crossing the room to the mantle. Behind the Christmas curtain was a small red box that hadn't been there yesterday. "Excuse me," said Sherlock, taking the box and his phone and leaving the room.

John followed him. "What's up, Sherlock?"

"I said, excuse me."

"Do you ever reply?"

Sherlock did not answer. He closed the door to his bedroom, leaving John on the other side.

Inside the box was Irene Adler's phone. He turned it over, verifying it with his memory.

Mycroft was spending the evening alone, staring into the fire, but he answered when Sherlock called. "Dear Lord," he said, "We're not going to have Christmas phone calls now, are we? Did they pass a new law?"

"I think you're going to find Irene Adler tonight," said Sherlock, as John let himself into the room and stood in the doorway.

"We already know where she is. As you were kind enough to point out, it hardly matters."

"No," said Sherlock, "I mean you're going to find her dead." He hung up.

"You okay?" asked John from the doorway.

"Yes," said Sherlock, shutting the door in his face again.

Mycroft didn't call back until hours later, when he sent Anthea round to bring Sherlock to the morgue to look at the corpse that had been found very early that morning. The snow was still falling on the old grey stones of St. Bart's.

"She's the only one who fitted the description. I had her brought here, your home from home," said Mycroft, as they stood looking down at the sheet-covered form on the table. Molly came round the other side.

"You didn't need to come in, Molly," Sherlock said to her.

"It's okay," said Molly. "Everyone else was busy with Christmas. Er, the face is a bit, sort of, bashed up. So it might be a bit difficult." Warning given, she folded the sheet down, revealing the body's head and shoulders. Sherlock looked down at it.

"That's her, isn't it?" asked Mycroft.

"Show the rest of her," said Sherlock. Molly folded the sheet down to the body's ankles. Sherlock's eyes swept up and down. "That's her." He turned and left the morgue.

"Thank you, Miss Hooper," said Mycroft. He turned to follow his brother.

"Who is she?" asked Molly. "How did Sherlock recognize her from…not her face?"

Mycroft smiled in what he hoped was a charming manner and left without answering.

Sherlock was waiting for him in the hallway outside the morgue, looking out the window at the falling snow. He didn't turn as Mycroft came up behind him.

Mycroft offered him a cigarette. "Just the one."

"Why?"

"Merry Christmas."

Sherlock took the cigarette. "Smoking indoors," he said, taking the lighter that Mycroft offered him. "Isn't that one of those…law things?"

"We're in the morgue. There's only so much damage you can do. How did you know she was dead?"

Sherlock took a deep breath of smoke and held it in his lungs for a long moment before exhaling. "She had an item in her possession. One she said her life depended on. She chose to give it up."

"Where is this item now?"

Instead of answering, Sherlock looked down the hall through a set of glass doors at a family—father, mother, surviving daughter—who had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and brought to the hospital so that a tired doctor in green scrubs could tell them that their child was dead. "Look at them," said Sherlock. "They all care so much. Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?"

"All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock," said Mycroft quietly.

Sherlock exhaled smoke in a gust. "This is low tar," he said scornfully, looking down at the offending cigarette.

"Well. You barely knew her."

Sherlock acknowledged this with a nod. "Merry Christmas, Mycroft," he said, walking away.

"And a happy new year," Mycroft called after him. After Sherlock had left, Mycroft pulled out his mobile and dialled. "He's on his way. Have you found anything?"

"No," said John. "Did he take the cigarette?"

"Yes."  
"Shit," sighed John. He turned to Mrs Hudson. "He's coming. Ten minutes."

"There's nothing in the bedroom," said Mrs Hudson.

"Well," said John to Mycroft, "it looks like he's clean. We've tried all the usual places. Are you sure tonight's a danger night?"

"No," conceded Mycroft, "but then, I never am. But you have to stay with him, John."

"But I've got plans," said John.

"No." And Mycroft hung up the phone.

"Mycroft—" said John, then realized he'd been hung up on. He put his phone back in his pocket and sat next to Jeanette on the couch. "I'm really sorry," he told her.

"You know," she said, "My friends are so wrong about you."

"Oh?"

"You're a great boyfriend."

John looked at her in confusion. "Oh. Okay. That's good. I mean, I always thought I was great."

"Sherlock Holmes is a very lucky man." She stood up and put on her shoes and grabbed her purse and coat.

"Jeanette, please—"

"No, I mean it. It's heart-warming. You'll do anything for him, and he can't even tell your girlfriends apart."

John stood up. "Look, I'll do anything for you, just tell me what it is I'm not doing, tell me."

"Don't make me compete with Sherlock Holmes."

"I'll walk your dog for you?"

"I don't have a dog!"

John felt a sinking finality in his stomach. "No…because that was the last one. Yeah. Okay."

"Jesus," she said, and stalked out the door.

"I'll call you," he called after her.

"No!"

"Okay," he sighed. She clattered down the stairs.

"That really wasn't very good, was it?" asked Mrs Hudson regretfully from the kitchen.

John was reading in his armchair when he heard Sherlock's step on the stairs. "Hi," he said to Sherlock, who stopped in the doorway. "You okay?"

Sherlock carefully scanned the room, saying nothing. Abruptly he turned and went to his own bedroom. "I hope you didn't mess up my sock index this time."

On the morning of New Year's Eve, Sherlock did not appear for several hours. John ate breakfast and was getting dressed in his room when he heard Sherlock finally get up. Rather than his usual noises, though, the sound of the violin started wafting through the flat.

John returned to the sitting room to find Sherlock playing the violin in front of the window. He and Mrs Hudson exchanged a glance as Mrs Hudson took away Sherlock's untouched breakfast.

"Lovely tune, Sherlock," said Mrs Hudson, "Haven't heard that one before."

"Composing?" asked John.

"Helps me to think," said Sherlock, making notes on staff paper.

"What're you thinking about?"

Sherlock abruptly dropped the violin. "The count on your blog is still stuck at 1,895."

"Yeah, it's faulty. I can't seem to fix it."

"Faulty. Or you've been hacked and it's a message." He pulled Irene Adler's phone out of his pocket. I AM LOCKED, it told him, with four blanks across the centre of the screen. I AM 1895 LOCKED.

The phone made an angry clanging noise. Wrong passcode, it informed him. Three attempts remaining.

"Or it's just faulty," said Sherlock.

"Right," said John. "Well, I'm going out for a bit." Sherlock said nothing, and after a moment John walked away.

He met Mrs Hudson at the door. "Listen," he asked her. "Has he ever had any kind of…girlfriend, boyfriend, a relationship—ever?"

"I don't know."

John sighed. "How could we not know?"

She shrugged. "He's Sherlock. How will we ever know what goes on in that funny old head?"

"Right," he said. He could not figure out how worried he should be about Sherlock, if at all. Irene Adler seemed to have gotten under his skin, though John couldn't see how. He'd been in her flat for not even half an hour, and then she texted him an unknown number of times before ending up dead. But there was no denying the moodiness that had been lurking around Sherlock for months. "See you."

Anthea was standing on the pavement when he came outside. He almost didn't see her. "John," she called after him.

He stopped. "Yeah?" Turned, recognized her. "Hello."

"So. Any plans for the New Year tonight?" She smiled at him.

"Uhm. Nothing fixed. Nothing I couldn't heartlessly abandon. You have any ideas?"

"One." The expensive black car pulled up next to them.

John sighed. "You know, Mycroft could phone me, if he didn't have this bloody stupid power complex." But he got in the car.

This time, they drove to an enormous, disused power station in southwest London. Anthea led him down hallways and up stairs, always up, until they were at the top level and a hallway that was more of a catwalk over ceiling girders. "Couldn't we just go to a café?" John asked her. "Sherlock doesn't follow me everywhere."

She pointed to a door, and stood aside to let him pass. "Through there," she told him. He looked at her for a moment, then went. As she walked back the way she had come, she placed a phone call. "He's on his way," she said. "You were right. He thinks it's Mycroft."

The fluorescent lights that lined the control room of the power plant were buzzing. John stepped around the instrument panels that were taller than he was—indeed, tall enough to make the whole control room feel enclosed, in spite of the large windows along the other wall.

"He's writing sad music," said John, his voice echoing off the metal walls and tile floors. "Doesn't eat. Barely talks. Only to correct the television. I'd say he was heartbroken, but he's Sherlock. He does all that…anyway…" He trailed off as he looked around, because the person who had stepped into the light from in between two large panel boxes was not Mycroft Holmes.

It was Irene Adler.

"Hello, Dr Watson," she said, her high heels clacking lightly on the parquet floor.

John stared at her for long, long seconds. Then he said, quietly, "Tell him you're alive."

"They'd come after me."

"I'll come after you if you don't."

"I believe you."

"You—" His voice rose. "You were dead on a slab. It was definitely you."

"DNA tests are only as good as the records you keep."

"And I bet you know the record keeper."

"I know what he likes. And I needed to disappear."

"Then how come I can see you and I don't even want to?"

"Look," she said, holding up her hands, "I made a mistake. I sent something to Sherlock for safekeeping and now I need it back, so I need your help."

"No."

"It's for his own safety."

"So's this: Tell him you're alive."

"I can't."

"Fine. I'll tell him. And I still won't help you." He turned and started to walk away.

"What do I say?" she called after him.

He rounded on her. "What do you normally say?" he countered, shouting now. "You've texted him a lot."

"Just the usual stuff."

"There is no usual in this case."

She pulled out her phone and started reading old texts. "Good morning. I like your funny hat. I'm sad tonight. Let's have dinner. You look sexy on _Crimewatch_. Let's have dinner. I'm not hungry. Let's have dinner."

"You…flirted? With Sherlock Holmes?"

" _At_ him. He never replies."

"Sherlock always replies. To everything. He's Mister Punchline. He will outlive God trying to have the last word."

"Does that make me special?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"You jealous?"

"We're not a couple."

"Yes you are. There." She held up her phone to show him. "'I'm not dead. Let's have dinner.'" She hit send on her phone.

"Who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes, but for the record, if anyone out there still cares, I'm not actually gay."

"Well, I am. Look at us both."

At that moment, an orgasmic sigh interrupted the conversation. A moment later they heard a departing echo of footsteps.

John started forward to follow Sherlock, but Irene put out a hand to stop him. "I don't think so," she said to him, "Do you?"

Sherlock left the power station and went back to Baker Street, putting off the conversation that he knew John would want to have about Irene Adler still being alive. Her being alive, though, was not the centre of the thing. She was just another person out to get the information on the phone. To get at the phone. The phone was the target, not himself. And not her.

He stopped in his tracks—and in his thoughts—when he got to his front door and saw the chipped paint where the edge of the door met the strike plates. The lock had been forced. He swung the door open slowly, silently.

The inner door, with its half-pane of frosted glass that they always left open, was closed as well. The door to Mrs Hudson's flat, though, was ajar. A caddy of cleaning supplies lay abandoned on the floor. And now Sherlock could see scuffs on the wallpaper going up the staircase—boots—and small scrapes and tears made by fingernails.

He didn't trouble to silence his approach. They were waiting for him. He pushed open the door to flat B—which he'd left open, as usual, when he left—and let himself in, hands clasped behind his back.

There were three of them. One was the American who'd ordered John shot at Irene Adler's. The other two were new flunkies, he supposed. Mrs Hudson was in a kitchen chair that had been moved to the centre of the sitting room. The American had his gun with a silencer attached to the barrel trained on her. She started crying and whimpering when he came in the door. "Sherlock—oh Sherlock—help—"

"Don't snivel, Mrs Hudson," said Sherlock. "It'll do nothing to impede the flight of a bullet." He looked at the CIA man. "What a tender world that would be."

"Please," sobbed Mrs Hudson, "Stop it, Sherlock."

"I believe you have something that we want, Mr Holmes," said the American.

"Why don't you ask for it?" asked Sherlock, stepping close to Mrs Hudson and gently pushing up the sleeve of her jumper, which was ripped at the shoulder, to reveal bruises on her thin wrists. His eyes passed over the blood on her cheek and corresponding blood on the ring on the American's hand.

"Well, we've been asking this one, she doesn't seem to know anything. But you know what I'm asking for, don't you, Mr Holmes?"

"I believe I do," said Sherlock, his voice flat. He stepped back. "First get rid of your boys."

"Why?"

"I dislike being outnumbered, it makes for too much stupid in the room."

"You two," said the gunman carefully, "go to the car."

"Then get into the car and drive away," Sherlock told them. "Don't try to trick me. You know who I am. It doesn't work." The two men left. "Next," said Sherlock, "you can stop pointing that gun at me."

"So you can point a gun at me?"

Sherlock held his arms out from his sides, inviting a search. "I'm unarmed."

"Mind if I check?"

"Oh, I insist."

The American approached Sherlock carefully, keeping the gun trained on him with one hand and using the other to pat the pockets of Sherlock's trench coat. He walked behind Sherlock, feeling for a shoulder holster.

That was when Sherlock pulled the aerosol cleaner out of his breast pocket and sprayed it in the gunman's eyes. The American shouted in pain, then fell abruptly silent as Sherlock headbutted him and the American dropped to the floor, unconscious.

"Moron," said Sherlock, putting the aerosol down on the table. He crouched in front of Mrs Hudson. "Are you alright?" She nodded.

Good, he thought, turning back to the unconscious American, his mouth set in a flat line, his eyes hard as flint.

When John arrived back at Baker Street in Anthea's fancy black car a few minutes later, he found a note stuck under the knocker.

 _Crime in Progress. Please Disturb._

He went up the stairs to find Mrs Hudson huddled on the couch, Sherlock in the armchair next to her holding a gun, and a battered man gagged with duct tape and tied to a kitchen chair in the centre of the room. "What's going on? What the hell is happening?"

"Mrs Hudson's been attacked by an American," said Sherlock. "I'm restoring balance to the universe."

"Mrs Hudson, my god. Are you all right? Jesus, what've they done to you?"

Mrs Hudson started to cry again. "I'm just being so silly," she said, shaken.

"Downstairs. Take her downstairs and look after her," said Sherlock, standing up. He took out his phone and dialled, still pointing the gun at the American.

"It's all right," said John to Mrs Hudson, "I'll have a look at that." He motioned her downstairs, then turned briefly to Sherlock. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"I expect so. Now go," said Sherlock.

John went, half-expecting to hear the _snip_ of the gun with the silencer on it. Instead he heard Sherlock talking into his phone. "Lestrade? We've had a break in at Baker Street. Send your least-irritating officers and an ambulance." There was a pause. "Oh, no no no, we're fine. No, it's the burglar. He's got himself rather badly injured…Oh, a few broken ribs, fractured skull, suspected punctured lung. He fell out of the window."

John was washing the cut on Mrs Hudson's cheek in front of her sink when a dark shape flashed past the window and landed with a resounding crash. "Oh," said Mrs Hudson fretfully, "that was right on my bins."

"And exactly how many times did he fall out of the window?" asked Lestrade later, as the ambulance pulled away.

"It's all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count."

After Lestrade left, Sherlock let himself into the back door of Mrs Hudson's flat, straight into her kitchen. She and John were sitting at the table.

"She'll have to sleep upstairs in our flat tonight," John told him. "We need to look after her."

"No," pleaded Mrs Hudson.

"She's fine," said Sherlock, helping himself to a bun in Mrs Hudson's refrigerator.

"No, she's not, look at her. She's got to take some time away from Baker Street. She can go and stay with her sister. Doctor's orders."

"Don't be absurd," said Sherlock.

"She's in shock, for God's sake, and all over some bloody stupid cameraphone. Where is it, anyway?"

"Safest place I know," said Sherlock, looking at Mrs Hudson, who smiled—tears gone—and pulled the phone out of her bra.

"He left it in the pocket of his second-best dressing gown," she said, "you clot. I managed to sneak it out when they thought I was having a cry."

"Thank you," said Sherlock, putting the phone in his pocket. "Shame on you, John Watson."

"Shame on me?"

"Mrs Hudson leave Baker Street? England would fall." He gave her a rare sideways hug. She smiled and patted his hand on her shoulder.

Later, after Mrs Hudson shooed them upstairs with many assertions that she'd be just fine, thank you very much, Sherlock disappeared for a few minutes while John poured himself a drink. Sherlock came back in and threw his coat over a desk chair.

"Where is it now?" John asked.

"Where no one will look," said Sherlock, picking up his violin.

"Whatever's on that phone is more than just pictures." John did not make it a question.

"Yes, it is." Sherlock turned his back.

"So, she's alive, then. How are we feeling about that?" Outside, John could hear distant cathedral bells starting to toll. It sounded like the Orthodox cathedral up by Regent's Park.

"Happy New Year, John," said Sherlock, not turning around.

"Do you think you'll be seeing her again?"

Sherlock didn't answer. Instead, he started playing Auld Lang Syne on his violin. John gave up and sat in his chair to read.

 **Part Three**

 **Six Months Later**

"Is that a phone?" asked Molly, looking at the screen that Sherlock was examining. There had been nothing further from Irene since New Year's Eve when she had resurfaced to try and get her cameraphone back. Sherlock had handled numerous cases in the interim, but on slow days, like today, he would pull the phone out and contemplate it. Contemplate the woman who'd given it to him.

"It's a cameraphone," Sherlock clarified.

"And you're x-raying it?"

"Yes I am."

"Whose phone is it?"

"A woman's."

"Your girlfriend?"

Sherlock blinked. "You think she's my girlfriend because I'm x-raying her possessions?"

"Well, we all do silly things."

"Yes." Then his eyes came into focus and he looked at her for the first time. "They do, don't they? Very silly." He stood up and took the phone out of the x-ray machine. "She sent this to my address. She loves to play games."

"She does?"

Sherlock typed 221B as the passcode and hit enter. Wrong passcode, the phone beeped at him in alarm. Two attempts remaining.

When Sherlock returned to 221B later that afternoon, something smelled funny. Perfume. He checked the kitchen and found an unlatched window. He could hear John coming down the stairs to the sitting room, so he knew the source wasn't upstairs, and he crossed the hall to his bedroom.

Irene Adler was asleep in his bed.

"John," he called. "We have a client."

"What, in your bedroom?" asked John, crossing the hall to join him. He looked at Sherlock's bed and gave a soft "ohh" of recognition.

After she woke up, she insisted on showering before answering questions. Eventually, she emerged from the bathroom wearing Sherlock's dressing gown, and sat in his chair.

"So, who's after you?" asked Sherlock.

"People who want to kill me," she said.

"Who's that?"

She looked at him, her eyes wide and innocent. "Killers?"

"It would help if you were a tiny bit more specific," said John.

"You faked your own death in order to get ahead of them," said Sherlock.

"It worked for awhile."

"Except you let John know that you were alive and therefore me."

"I knew you'd keep my secret."

"You couldn't."

"But you did, didn't you?" She sat up straighter. "Where's my cameraphone?"

"It's not here," said John. "We're not stupid."

"Then what've you done with it? If they've guessed you've got it they'll be watching you."

"If they've been watching me they'll know that I took a safety deposit box at a bank in the Strand a few months ago."

"I need it."

"Well, we can't just go and get it, can we?" said John. He looked at Sherlock. "Molly Hooper. She could collect it, take it to Bart's. Then one of your homeless network could bring it here, leave it in the café. Then one of the boys downstairs could bring it up the back."

"Very good, John. Excellent plan. Full of intelligent precautions."

"Thank you. So. Why don't I—"

Sherlock pulled Irene's phone out of the pocket of his trousers. "So," he asked Irene. "What do you keep on here? In general, I mean."

"Pictures. Information. Anything I might find useful."

"What, for blackmail?" asked John.

"For _protection_ ," she corrected. "I make my way in the world. I misbehave. I like to know people will be on my side exactly when I need them to be."

"So how do you acquire this information?" Sherlock asked.

"I told you. I misbehave."

"But you've acquired something that's more danger than protection. Do you know what it is?"

"Yes. But I don't understand it."

"I assumed. Show me." She held her hand out for the phone, but Sherlock did not hand it over. "The passcode."

Irene said nothing and did not move. After a moment, Sherlock passed her the phone.

As she took the phone and entered the passcode, the look of satisfaction on her face turned to confusion as the phone beeped threateningly at her. "It's not working."

"No," said Sherlock, taking the phone back from her, "Because it's a duplicate that I had made into which you've just entered the numbers 1058. I assumed you'd choose something more specific than that, but thanks anyway." And he pulled Irene's real phone out from between the cushions of his armchair and entered 1058.

Wrong passcode, blared the phone.

"I told you that cameraphone was my life," Irene told him. "I know when it's in my hand."

"You're rather good," Sherlock admitted.

"You're not so bad," said Irene, taking her phone from Sherlock. They regarded each other in a long moment of what might be appreciation.

"Hamish," John said abruptly. They both turned to him in surprise. "John Hamish Watson. Just, if you're looking for baby names."

"There was a man," said Irene. "An MOD official and I knew what he liked. One of the things he liked was showing off. He told me this email was going to save the world. He didn't know it, but I photographed it. He was a bit tied up at the time." She handed the phone to Sherlock. "It's a bit small on that screen, can you read it?"

"Yes."

"Code, obviously. I had one of the best cryptographers in the country take a look at it, though he was mostly upside-down, as I recall. Couldn't figure it out. What can you do, Mr Holmes? Go on. Impress a girl." She leaned in close and kissed his ear in a manner that was supposed to distract him, but he already had the answer.

"There's a margin for error, but I'm pretty sure there's a 747 leaving Heathrow tomorrow at 6:30 in the evening for Baltimore. Apparently it's going to save the world, I'm not sure how that can be true, but give me a moment. I've only been on the case for eight seconds." He looked up to see John and Irene staring at him in blank shock. "Oh, come on. It's not code. These are seat allocations on a passenger jet. Look. There's no letter I, because it can be mistaken for a 1. No letters past K—the width of the plane is the limit. The numbers always appear randomly and not in sequence. But the letters have little runs of sequence all over the place. Families and couples sitting together. Only a jumbo's wide enough to need a letter K or rows past 55, which is why there's always an upstairs. There's a row 13, which eliminates the more superstitious airlines. Then there's the style of the flight number, 007, that eliminates a few more. Assuming a British point of origin, which would be logical considering the original source of the information, and assuming from the increased pressure on you lately that the crisis is imminent, the only flight that matches all the criteria departs within the week. It's the 6:30 to Baltimore tomorrow evening from Heathrow Airport. Please don't feel obliged to tell me that was remarkable or amazing, John's expressed that the thought in every possible variant available to the English language."

"I would have you right here on this desk until you begged for mercy twice," Irene informed him.

Okay, maybe not _every_ possible variant. "John, please, could you check those flight schedules and see if I'm right?" asked Sherlock.

"Oh, um, I'm on it, yeah," said John.

Sherlock turned back to Irene. "I've never begged for mercy in my life."

Irene's eyes told him she would do it. "Twice."

"Yeah, you're right," interrupted John. "Flight 007."

"What did you say?" Sherlock turned to him.

"You're right?"

"No, after that, what did you say after that?"

"Double-oh seven? Flight double-oh seven?"

When Sherlock had read it on the screen, he'd said it to himself as zero-zero-seven. John said it like James Bond. That reminded him of something, something, something he'd heard somewhere. "007, 007, 007, 007…something's…" he muttered to himself "007, 007…what?" He started to pace.

Irene, holding her phone behind her back, sent a text.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Sherlock heard an echo of a phone conversation he'd heard Mycroft have in the hall at Baker Street. "Bond Air is go," Mycroft had said. "Bond Air is go."

Standing in the shadow of Big Ben, James Moriarty received Irene Adler's text. Then he sent one of his own.

Jumbo jet. Dear me, Mr Holmes. Dear me.

Then he blew a raspberry at the clock tower.

Mycroft received the text at his house, and he knew it was over.

Later that evening, Sherlock was plucking idly at his violin, still thinking.

Irene had stolen an email from an MOD official and in the process, uncovered some top secret information involving a transatlantic commercial flight. Mycroft knew about the conspiracy—knowing him, he'd probably come up with it in the first place. The MOD man, realizing that Irene had stolen information from him, had called in a favour with the Americans, or had told Mycroft what had happened and Mycroft called the Americans. When it became clear to her that the stolen information was dangerous, Irene sent word to the mysterious and illustrious client, demanding protection in exchange for keeping the secret, hoping to cancel the two things out. Instead, though, the Mystery Client had called Mycroft, and Mycroft went even further on the offensive, sending Sherlock after the pictures while the Americans kept trying, and events had started to spiral out of Irene's control.

What sort of plot would involve his brother and a transatlantic flight manifest?

 _Check with the Coventry lot_. Mycroft had said that too. "Coventry," he said out loud.

"I've never been. Is it nice?" Irene asked.

Sherlock looked around. "Where's John?"

"He went out. A couple of hours ago."

Confusion passed over Sherlock's face. "I was just talking to him."

"He said you do that. What's Coventry got to do with anything?"

"It's a story. Probably not true. In the Second World War, the Allies knew that Coventry was going to get bombed because they'd broken the German code but they didn't want the Germans to know that they'd broken the code, so they let it happen anyway."

"Have you ever had anyone?" Irene asked abruptly.

Sherlock's eyebrows knitted ever so slightly. "Sorry?"

"And when I say 'had,' I'm being indelicate."

"I don't understand."

"I'll be delicate, then." She rose from her chair and crouched in front of him, put her hand on his. "Let's have dinner."

"Why?"

"Might be hungry."

"I'm not."

"Good." She was holding his hand now.

"Why would I want to have dinner if I wasn't hungry?"

"Mr Holmes. If it was the end of the world, if this was the very last night…would you have dinner with me?"

Mrs Hudson's steps rose from the stairwell. "Sherlock!" she called.

"Too late," said Irene softly.

"It's not the end of the world. It's Mrs Hudson." But still, when Mrs Hudson came through the door, Irene was back in John's chair on the other side of the fireplace.

"Sherlock, this man was at the door. Is the bell still not working?" She turned to the well-dressed man behind her and explained, "he shot it."

"Have you come to take me away again?" Sherlock demanded.

"Yes, Mr Holmes," said the same suited man who had taken him to Buckingham Palace almost a year ago.

"Well, I decline."

"I don't think you do." The man reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a plain white envelope. He handed it to Sherlock.

It was a plane ticket. One way. Flight #007 from London Heathrow to Baltimore/Washington International. Business class. Passenger name: Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock got up and put on his coat. He left Irene behind in the flat.

In the car, Sherlock sat behind two silent, absurdly well-dressed government agents, holding his ticket. "There's going to be a bomb on a passenger jet. British and American governments know about it, but rather than expose the source of their information they're going to let it happen. The plane will blow up. Coventry all over again. The wheel turns, nothing is ever new."

The men up front did not reply. They remained silent all the way to Heathrow, where they drove on the tarmac, past the enormous hangars, to a 747 parked on its own at one end of a quiet terminal. A staircase had been wheeled to the 747's open door. Waiting at the bottom of the stairs, holding himself stiffly, was the American who had broken into 221B and held Mrs Hudson hostage.

"Well," said Sherlock, getting out of the car, "You're looking all better. How're you feeling?"

"Like putting a bullet in your brain, sir." Sherlock smirked at him and started up the stairs. The American called after him, "They'd pin a medal on me if I did. Sir." Sherlock paused for just a moment, then continued up the stairs to the plane's door, which was open.

The interior of the plane was dark and silent. Every seat was filled, though. With a dead body. Sherlock turned around in confusion.

"The Coventry Conundrum," said a voice behind him, and he spun around to see Mycroft. "What do you think of my solution? The flight of the dead."

Sherlock saw it all now. "Plane blows up in mid-air. Mission accomplished for the terrorists. Hundreds of casualties but nobody dies."

"Neat, don't you think? You've been stumbling around the fringes of this one for ages. Or were you too bored to notice the pattern?"

 _They wouldn't let us see granddad when he was dead._

 _She's not my real aunt. I know human ash._

The little girls who wanted to know about heaven. The bartender with not-his-aunt in a box.

"We ran a similar project with the Germans awhile back," continued Mycroft, "Though I believe one of our passengers didn't make the flight."

 _This man should've died in a plane crash in Germany yesterday, but instead he's in a car boot in Surrey._

"But that's the deceased for you," continued Mycroft. "Late. In every sense of the word."

"How's the plane going to fly—of course," said Sherlock, answering his own question even as he asked it. "Unmanned aircraft. Hardly new."

"It doesn't fly. It will never fly. This entire project is cancelled. The terrorist cells have been informed that we know about the bomb. We can't fool them now. We've lost everything. One fragment of one email, and months and years of planning…finished."

"Your MOD man."

"That's all it takes. One lonely, naïve man desperate to show off. And a woman clever enough to make him feel special."

"You should screen your defence people more carefully."

"I'm not talking about the MOD man, Sherlock, I'm talking about _you_ ," said Mycroft, his voice dripping with disgust. "The damsel in distress? In the end, are you really so obvious? Because this was _textbook_. The promise of love. The pain of loss. The joy of redemption. And give him a puzzle, and watch him dance."

"Don't be absurd," said Sherlock, but with cold, angry certainty he knew Mycroft was right. He'd identified the flight manifest. She had somehow passed the word along to terrorists without him noticing, and Mycroft's sources in the terrorist cell had, in turn, told him that the game was up.

"Absurd? How quickly did you decipher that email for her? Was it a full minute? Or were you really eager to impress?"

"I think it was less than five seconds," said Irene, from the door of the plane.

"I drove you into her path," said Mycroft. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Mr Holmes," said Irene, "I think we need to talk."

"So do I," said Sherlock. "There are a number of aspects I'm still not quite clear on."

"Not you, Junior, you're done now," said Irene, stepping past him and looking at Mycroft. "There's more, loads more. On this phone I've got secrets. Pictures and scandals that could topple your whole world. You have no idea how much havoc I can cause and exactly one way to stop me. Unless you want to tell your masters that your biggest security leak is your own little brother."

They adjourned to one of Mycroft's offices on Regent Street for negotiations. Sherlock knew that his brother would have been much happier to run his life on rail tracks, to go to and fro from work to home every day like a pendulum on a clock, but that Mycroft's immense sense of caution drove him to own a number of houses and offices, none of which held sensitive or personal information, all of which could be abandoned at a moment's notice. Some ran towards higher taste than others. Mycroft's only real home was the Diogenes Club, that rare and silent gathering of men who asked no questions.

Both Irene and Mycroft ignored Sherlock's presence, but he followed them in, still needing answers to his questions, unwilling to go back to Baker Street in defeat. He sat in front of the fire, some distance away from Irene and Mycroft seated at a table, listening to the negotiations without participating.

"We have people who can get into this," said Mycroft, tapping the phone which rested on the table between them.

"I tested that theory for you. I let Sherlock Holmes try it for six months. Sherlock, dear, tell him what you found when you x-rayed my cameraphone."

"There are four additional units wired inside the casing. I suspect containing acid or a small amount of explosive. Any attempt to open the casing will burn the hard drive," said Sherlock without turning round.

"Explosive," clarified Irene. "It's more me."

"Some data is always recoverable."

She shrugged. "Take that risk, then."

"You have a passcode to open this. I deeply regret to say we have people who can extract it from you."

"Sherlock?" said Irene.

"There'll be two passcodes. One to open the phone, one to burn the drive." Sherlock remembered how the safe in her house in Belgravia had been wired. "Even under duress, you can't know which one she's given you and there would be no point in a second attempt."

"He's good, isn't he?" mused Irene. "I should have him on a leash. In fact, I might."

"We destroy this, then," said Mycroft. "No one has the information."

"Fine. Good idea. Unless there are lives of British citizens depending on the information you're about to burn."

"Are there?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Telling you would be playing fair. I'm not playing anymore." She reached into her handbag and pulled out an envelope, sliding it across the table to Mycroft. "A list of my requests. And some ideas about my protection, once they're granted. I'd say it wouldn't blow much of a hole in the wealth of the nation, but then, I'd be lying."

Mycroft's eyebrows slowly rose as his eyes scanned down the list.

"I imagine you'd like to sleep on it," Irene said.

"Thank you, yes," he said.

"Too bad. Off you pop and talk to people."

Mycroft leaned back in his chair and looked at her. "You've been very…thorough. I wish our lot were half as good as you."

"I can't take all the credit," said Irene. "I had a bit of help. Jim Moriarty sends his love."

"Yes," said Mycroft, not surprised, "He's been in touch. Seems desperate for my attention. Which I'm sure can be arranged."

Of course, thought Sherlock. He should have seen that coming. _If you have what you say you have, I'll make you rich. If you don't, I'll make you into shoes._

 _I will burn the heart out of you. You'll be hearing from me, Sherlock._

"I had all this stuff," said Irene, "Never knew what to do with it. Thank god for the consulting criminal. He gave me a lot of advice about how to play the Holmes boys. Do you know what he calls you? 'The Ice Man and the Virgin.' Didn't even ask for anything. I think he just likes to cause trouble. Now, that's my kind of man."

"And here you are," said Mycroft. "The dominatrix who brought a nation to its knees. Nicely played."

"No," said Sherlock, speaking for the first time in long minutes. _How to play the Holmes boys._ He had it now. He saw the whole chess board. The answer had blossomed in his brain, bringing with it a kind of serenity.

"Sorry?" said Irene.

"I said no. Very, very close, but no." He rose and crossed the room. "You got carried away. The game was too elaborate. You're enjoying yourself too much."

"There's no such thing as too much."

"Oh, enjoying the thrill of the chase is fine. Varying the distraction of the game. I sympathize entirely. But sentiment? Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side."

Irene stared at him in confusion. "Sentiment? What're you talking about?"

"You."

Irene looked caught between laughter and tears. "Oh dear god. Look at the poor man. You don't actually think I was interested in you? Why? Because you're the great Sherlock Holmes? The clever detective in the funny hat?"

"No." He took a step closer and took her hand, leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Because I took your pulse—elevated. Your pupils—dilated." He leaned past her and picked up the cameraphone from the table. "I imagine John Watson thinks love's a mystery to me, but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive. When we first met you told me that disguise is always a self-portrait. How true of you. The combination to your safe, your measurements. But this?" He held up the phone. "This is far more intimate. This is your heart. And you should never let it rule your head. You could have chosen any random number and walked out of here today with everything you've worked for, but you just couldn't resist it, could you? I've always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof."

"Everything I said," she said to him, putting her hand on his, trying to stop him, "It's not real. I was just playing the game."

"I know," Sherlock told her. "And this is just losing." He held up the phone for her to see. He had filled in the passcode. The phone's screen now read I AM SHER-LOCKED.

For a dead woman, she kept her composure rather well, but all the strength had gone out of her face just the same. Sherlock handed the phone to Mycroft. "There you are, brother. I hope the contents make up for any inconvenience I may have caused you tonight."

Mycroft took the phone. "I'm certain they will."

"If you're feeling kind, lock her up. Otherwise, let her go. I doubt she'll survive long without her protection." Any number of people whom she'd blackmailed would be after her. The Americans would soon be the least of her worries. Jim Moriarty, for one, would be furious that she'd ruined his fun, his ability—at least through this avenue—to mess with the Holmes boys.

"Are you expecting me to beg?" she demanded, her voice shaking.

"Yes." He paused at the door, holding his coat.

She took a shaky breath. "Please. You're right. I won't even last six months."

"Sorry about dinner," he told her, and let himself out.

Months later, John was running up Baker Street, trying to get out of the rain, when he spotted Mycroft smoking a cigarette under the awning at Speedy's, the diner next door. "You don't smoke," he said to Mycroft.

"I also don't frequent cafes," said Mycroft, grinding the cigarette out on the wet pavement and stepping into Speedy's. After a moment, John followed.

Mycroft placed a waterproof bag with a file inside on a table and sat down while John bought tea. John recognized the phone on top of the file. "Is that the file on Irene Adler?" he asked, sitting down.

"Closed forever. I am about to go and inform my brother, or, if you prefer, you are, that she's somehow got herself into a witness protection scheme in America. New name. New identity. She will survive, and thrive. But he will never see her again."

"Why would he care? He despised her at the end. Won't even mention her by name. Just 'The Woman.'"

"Is that loathing? Or a salute? One of a kind, the one woman who matters?"

"He's not like that. He doesn't feel things that way. I don't think."

"My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?"

"I don't know." _And if I did_ , thought John, _I wouldn't tell you_.

"Neither do I. But initially, he wanted to be a pirate."

After a slight pause in which John tried to imagine Sherlock at only four feet tall, John said, "He'll be okay with this witness protection, never seeing her again. He'll be fine."

"I agree. That's why I decided to tell him that."

"Instead of what?"

"She's dead. She was captured by a terrorist cell in Karachi two months ago and beheaded."

John's face darkened. "It's definitely her? She's done this before."

"I was thorough this time. It would take Sherlock Holmes to fool me. And I don't think he was on hand, do you? So…what shall we tell Sherlock?"

Sherlock was sitting at his microscope at the kitchen table when John came up the stairs. He did not look up, but listened to the sound of John's steps. "Clearly, you've got news. If it's about the Leeds triple murder, it was the gardener. Nobody noticed the earring."

"Uh, no, it's um, it's about Irene Adler."

"Well? Something happen, did she come back?"

"No, she's—I just bumped into Mycroft downstairs. He had to take a call."

"She back in London?"

John really had intended to tell Sherlock the truth, because he knew he was a lousy liar, but at the last minute, he couldn't do it. "No. She's, uh, she's in America."

"America?"

"Got herself into a witness protection scheme apparently. Dunno how she swung it, but uh…you know."

Sherlock wanted to look up and tell John what a bad liar he was, but he kept his eyes in his microscope. "I know what?"

"Well you won't be able to see her again."

"Why would I want to see her again?"

"Didn't say you did."

"That her file?"

"Yes, I was just going to take it back to Mycroft. Do you want to…" But Sherlock had buried his head in his microscope again, the picture of disinterest. "Listen," started John, "Actually—"

"But I will have the cameraphone, though," said Sherlock, his eyes still in the microscope.

"There's nothing on it anymore. It's been stripped."

"I know but I…I'll still have it."

"I've got to give this back to Mycroft. You can't keep it."

Sherlock held his hand out for the phone.

"Sherlock, I have to give this to Mycroft. It's the government's now, I couldn't—"

"Please."

John paused and looked at him. Sherlock's eyes never left the microscope, but still…Sherlock so rarely said _Please_ for anything. And if Mycroft really wanted the phone back, he could argue with Sherlock over it himself. John reached into the evidence bag and pulled out the phone. Placed it in Sherlock's hand.

The phone promptly disappeared into Sherlock's trouser pocket. "Thank you."

"I better take this back," said John, gesturing to the remaining file.

"Yes."

John started to leave, then turned back at the top of the stairs. "Did she ever text you again? After all that?"

"Once. A few months ago."

"What'd she say?"

"'Good-bye, Mr Holmes.'"

John hovered for a moment longer, then went downstairs.

Sherlock waited until John's steps receded before he stood and walked to the window, scrolling through the texts on his own phone as he did so.

I'm not hungry, let's have dinner.

Bored in a hotel. Join me. Let's have dinner.

John's blog is HILARIOUS. I think he likes you more than I do. Let's have dinner.

I can see Tower Bridge and the moon from my room. Work out where I am and join me.

I saw you in the street today. You didn't see me.

You do know that hat actually suits you, don't you?

Oh for God's sake. Let's have dinner.

I like your funny hat.

I'm in Egypt talking to an idiot. Get on a plane, let's have dinner.

You looked sexy on Crimewatch.

Even you have got to eat. Let's have dinner.

BBC1 right now. You'll laugh.

I'm thinking of sending you a Christmas present.

Mantelpiece.

I'm not dead. Let's have dinner.

Happy New Year. (The one text he'd sent her.)

Goodbye Mr Holmes.

He slid Irene's phone into a desk drawer, then looked out the window. And even though outside, London was soggy and rainy and cold, for just a moment, Sherlock thought that he could smell fish, and humid salty air, and sweat. That he was invisible in plain sight, his head wrapped in a _shemagh_ that covered everything except his eyes.

"When I say run," he'd whispered, holding the machete in both hands, " _run."_

And she had run.

 **Canonical References**

The title, "A Scandal in Belgravia," is taken from the Holmes tale "A Scandal in Bohemia," which also features Irene Adler. Belgravia is a neighbourhood in the City of Westminster within the greater London metropolitan area. One of the wealthiest residential neighbourhoods in the world, it is also where Irene Adler meets her clientele.

In the "I notice way too many things, including ones of no significance" category: In _Sherlock_ , John and Watson each have "their" seats on either side of the fireplace (and each chair fits each man's personality). And setting chairs on either side of a fire (even a non-functional one, as _Sherlock's_ Baker Street fireplace seems to be) is an entirely natural thing to do, so the fact that Watson describes himself and Holmes "as we sat one winter's night on either side of the fire" in "The ' _Gloria Scott'_ " is probably entirely coincidental.

" _I would try to convince you, but everything I have to say has already crossed your mind."_ This quote (and Sherlock's reply) are very close to quotes from "The Final Problem."

" _In a crowd of eight million people all jostling and tripping over each other, every possible combination of events could be expected to take place, and there were plenty of problems which were striking and bizarre without being criminal."_ Much of this paragraph I borrowed or altered from "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle."

 _The Geek Interpreter, The Speckled Blonde, The Naval Treatment_ —These are all puns on Canon Holmes tales: "The Greek Interpreter," "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," and "The Naval Treaty." The affair of the aluminium crutch is mentioned by Watson in "The Musgrave Ritual" but never elaborated upon; Holmes says that it was before Watson's time.

" _In which you enumerate 240 different types of tobacco ash. Nobody's reading your website."_ In _A Study in Scarlet_ , Holmes tells Watson, "I have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand either of cigar or of tobacco." He mentions the monograph again in _The Sign of Four_ (this time mentioning the number 240, as well as the fact that he apparently had coloured plates of illustrations produced, an expensive and difficult process that shows the depth of Holmes' dedication to the subject).

" _No no no, don't mention the unsolved ones!"_ Watson mentions Holmes' numerous unsolved cases in "The Five Orange Pips," saying he generally declines to write about them because they "would be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolutely logical proof which was so dear to him."

" _Look at that. 1,895."_ I have to say, I feel like the writers here missed the chance to either point at when the original "A Scandal in Bohemia" took place (1888) or when it was published (1891). At least four stories are placed in 1895 in the Canon, though in "real life," 1895 was during Conan Doyle's hiatus from writing Holmes stories ("The Final Problem" was published in 1893; Doyle didn't start resume writing Holmes stories until _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ in 1901).

" _He handed John a tweed flat cap and pulled a cloth deerstalker down over his eyes."_ The deerstalker cap, arguably the article of clothing most associated with Sherlock Holmes, was never explicitly worn by him in the Canon. Conan Doyle mentions Holmes wearing "a close-fitting cloth cap" in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" and "an ear-flapped travelling cap" in "Silver Blaze." It was Sydney Paget, who illustrated the stories for _The Strand_ magazine, that made it explicitly a deerstalker. Basil Rathbone, of course, wore one when he played Holmes in movies in the 1930s (and Nigel Bruce wore a flat cap, hence Sherlock handing John a flat cap in this scene) and cemented the cultural image. Jeremy Brett's wardrobe was closer to Conan Doyle's Canon—he wore a cloth cap when on cases in the country, but when he was working in London, wore a top hat or a bowler.

" _I'm a private detective, the last thing I need is a public image."_ Though Holmes, to my recollection, doesn't say precisely this in the Canon, he is a private and un-social man who finds life much easier when people don't generally know who he is. In "A Scandal in Bohemia," Watson says that Holmes "loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul," and after his return from the dead in "The Adventure of the Empty House," he forbids Watson from shouting news of his survival to the world—partly so he can continue to track down Moriarty's gang, but also, after awhile, simply because being famous is abhorrent and makes his job, as a private detective, much more difficult. Watson says in "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" that "his cold and proud nature was always averse…from anything in the shape of public applause, and he bound me in the most stringent terms to say no further word of himself, his methods, or his successes—a prohibition which, as I have explained, has only now been removed."

" _Though she was not the housekeeper, it distressed Mrs Hudson to find milk on the mantelpiece."_ In "The Adventure of the Dying Detective," Watson says that "Mrs Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering woman. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. His incredible untidiness, his weird and often malodorous experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London."

" _Boys! You've got another one!"_ Though the driver's dramatic entrance into 221B is reminiscent of the arrival of Thorneycroft Huxtable in "The Adventure of the Priory School," the case itself bears more resemblance to "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge," in which a man is found with a bashed-in head in the English countryside, and the prime suspect is a man who was a guest in the house, and did not even know that his host was dead, but who finds himself a suspect all the same. "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" also features a client who finds himself a suspect (as well as _The Sign of Four_ , though that does not play a particular part in the story).

" _He was killed by a single blow to the back of the head from a blunt instrument, which then magically disappeared, along with the killer."_ The victim in "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" also died of a blow to the back of the head.

" _Having driven to an isolated location and successfully committed a crime without a single witness, why would he then call the police and consult a detective? Fair play?"_ In "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge," Holmes and Watson are in the middle of taking the extraordinary statement of a Mr John Scott Eccles, when Inspectors Gregson and Baynes arrive at 221B Baker Street to arrest Mr Eccles. Holmes is as dismissive of Mr Eccles as a suspect as Sherlock is of the driver of the backfiring car, though he is more polite about it.

" _I know exactly where I'm going."_ It is hinted at (though not directly stated) that Holmes visited Buckingham Palace after the events of "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" and received an emerald tie pin (though it is generally agreed upon that he refused the knighthood) as a reward for his services.

" _And this must be Dr John Watson. Formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers."_ Watson's regiment, as established in _A Study in Scarlet_ , dates back to 1674 when it was originally called the 5th Regiment of Foot. Depending on when Watson enlisted, his regiment may have had a slightly different name—he says he took his degree in medicine in 1878, then went through Netley (an English military hospital) for additional training before being "duly attached" to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Up until 1881, the regiment was officially called the 5th (Northumberland Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot; in 1881, they became simply the Northumberland Fusiliers (all the soldiers in the regiment being recruited from Northumberland). Conan Doyle may have been misremembering or combining these names when he first wrote _A Study in Scarlet_ in 1886-ish (it was published in 1887). Watson, of course, would have known what regiment he was part of, but may have written it differently to be more easily understood by his readership. The regiment was amalgamated in 1968 with three other fusilier regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, but regardless of date or period of adaptation, the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers will always be Watson's.

" _Mycroft, I don't do anonymous clients. I'm used to mystery at one end of my cases. Both ends is too much work."_ Holmes says something like this at least twice, most directly in "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client," which starts out similar to "A Scandal in Belgravia," in which a well-to-do client attempts to hire Holmes through an intermediary named Sir James Damery, rather than appearing at Baker Street himself. Holmes tells the intermediary, "I am sorry. I am accustomed to have mystery at one end of my cases, but to have it at both ends is too confusing. I fear, Sir James, that I must decline to act." In "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," a suspect who arrives at Baker Street and introduces himself with a pseudonym is sweetly told, "No, no; the real name. It is always awkward doing business with an alias." The client in "A Scandal in Bohemia" attempts to disguise his identity; this does not cause Holmes the same consternation as in "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" because he sees through the disguise almost immediately. He also declines to take on a case from a duplicitous prospective client in "The Resident Patient."

" _Irene Adler. Professionally known as The Woman…There are many names for what she does. She prefers Dominatrix."_ In "A Scandal in Bohemia," Irene Adler is a "well-known adventuress" and opera singer, born in New Jersey. The King of Bohemia, who has made himself vulnerable at Miss Adler's hands, says that she "has a soul of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men." Holmes, after surveilling Miss Adler for an afternoon, describes her as "the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet," though he may be characterizing other men's reactions to her, rather than his own.

" _She informed us that the photographs existed. She indicated that she had no intention to use them to extort either money or favour."_ In the original "Scandal in Bohemia," Irene Adler first threatens to send the incriminating photo she possesses to the King's fiancée, thus ruining any plans for his marriage; when she gets married herself, she keeps the photograph "only to safeguard myself."

" _And that's as modest as he gets."_ In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter," Holmes says that he "cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues."

" _Going into battle, John! I need the right armour!"_ Sherlock's eventual choice of disguise (that of an assaulted priest) is the same one that he uses to gain access to Irene Adler's home in "A Scandal in Bohemia," though in the original version Irene doesn't catch on to his deception until after Watson's "fire" and Holmes disappears from the house (after having ascertained the location of the picture he's looking for, intending to return for it the next day).

" _Looking takes ages. I'm just going to find them."_ In "A Scandal in Bohemia," Holmes replies, in response to Watson's inquiries, "I will not look…I will get her to show me." (Watson, predictably, does not find this explanation sufficient.) Holmes uses the device of waiting for a suspect to reveal or retrieve an object instead of searching for it himself at least twice, in "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty."

" _On hearing a smoke alarm, a mother would look towards her child. Amazing how fire exposes our priorities."_ Canon Holmes uses a similar device to induce Irene Adler to reveal the whereabouts of the King of Bohemia's picture on her own (he has Watson light a firecracker and throw it through the window of Irene's house). His quote (which he says to Watson, not to Irene) is, "When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it…A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box. Now it was clear to me that our lady of to-day had nothing in the house more precious to her than what we are in quest of."

" _Vatican Cameos!"_ I would like to take a moment here to point out what a badass Canon Holmes is. Besides a high-speed boat chase with guns and poison darts down the Thames ( _The Sign of Four_ ) and braving cheetahs and baboons and bashing snakes with canes ("The Adventure of the Speckled Band"), Holmes is an accomplished boxer (the door guard in _The Sign of Four_ , a former boxer, recognizes Holmes and says he got knocked out by him; Watson also mentions Holmes' skill as a boxer in "The Yellow Face"); he's described as an expert single-stick fighter and swordsman ( _A Study in Scarlet)_ ; an expert in "bartitsu" ("The Final Problem"); and can bend fire pokers with his bare hands ("The Adventure of the Speckled Band"). Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock (as well as Robert Downey Jr.'s) is very much in that spirit, what with his disarming gunmen and throwing burglars out windows (and losing fights to 8-ft-tall assassins).

Now, to Vatican Cameos: The explanation of this line that I most often see on the Internet is that it's a reference to a World War II code word used warn of an unauthorized person with a weapon entering a British military base. I can't find any non- _Sherlock_ Internet sources to corroborate this. I can tell you, however, that "Vatican cameos" is a case that Holmes mentions as having preoccupied his attention in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. So if it _was_ a World War II-era British code word, it may have come from Arthur Conan Doyle. And then Gatiss and Moffat either also got it from Conan Doyle, or had somehow heard the British urban legend, and the grandfathered connection to Holmes is the happiest of accidents. (And while I love the full-circle aspect of the second option, I realize the first is much more likely.)

" _That's the knighthood in the bag."_ Holmes declines to accept a knighthood following a case that Watson never describes; he merely mentions the occasion in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs."

" _The woman who beat you."_ Irene Adler is one of the few adversaries who ever beats Holmes; as Watson puts it in "A Scandal in Bohemia," "…the best laid plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late."

"The _woman! The woman woman!"_ In the Canon (and among Sherlockians, who take the phrase from Holmes himself), Irene Adler is known as " _the_ woman…she eclipses and dominates the whole of her sex." Dominates, ohhhh myyyyyy.

" _Sherlock had bowed to Mrs Hudson's repeated pleas and was playing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' on his violin."_ There's one Holmes tale that takes place during the Christmas season, and that's "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle."

" _No no no no no. He's not good with names."_ Watson's love life (though not elaborated on in the Canon) is said to spread over "three continents." (It has been a subject of much speculation as to which is the third continent, the first two presumably being Europe [England] and Asia [Afghanistan].) The number of wives Watson has is also a subject of debate; it's generally agreed upon that there were at least two. William S. Baring-Gould, an early Holmes biographer, made a case for Watson having six wives. In "The Adventure of the Empty House," Watson mentions that Holmes had heard of Watson's "sad bereavement" which, given Watson's lack of other family, is presumably the death of Mary Morstan (whom he met during the events of _The Sign of Four_ ). Watson also mentions in "The Five Orange Pips" that his wife was "on a visit to her mother's," so he must have had at least one wife other than Mary Morstan, who was an orphan.

" _Er, the face is a bit, sort of, bashed up. So it might be a bit difficult."_ The victim's face was also obliterated in _The Valley of Fear_ , which ended up being an important aspect of the case.

" _This is low tar."_ During their introductory conversation in the lab at St. Bart's, Holmes asks Watson if he objects to the smell of "strong tobacco." (Watson turns out to smoke strong tobacco himself.) There are a few references to Holmes smoking "shag tobacco" (the strong, cheap stuff), and of smoking it in great quantities—in "The Man With the Twisted Lip," he smokes all night thinking over a case, and when Watson awakes in the morning, the room is "full of a dense tobacco haze." Holmes smokes strong tobacco, and he smokes a lot of it.

" _Don't make me compete with Sherlock Holmes."_ Watson's readiness to abandon both his medical practice and his wife to go on adventures with Holmes is a source of much conversation and amusement amongst Sherlockians. Watson's wives are always much more understanding than Jeanette is here (indeed, in "The Boscomb Valley Mystery," she practically pushes him out the door).

" _Listen. Has Sherlock ever had any kind of…girlfriend, boyfriend, a relationship—ever?"_ Holmes is a solitary soul, friends only with Watson (and on friendly terms with precious few others). In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter," Watson describes Holmes' "aversion to women and his disinclination to form new friendships were both typical of his unemotional character." There is no mention of Holmes having a wife, or of wanting one, anywhere in the Canon (he does get engaged, once, but that was in pursuit of a case).

" _Who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes, but for the record, if anyone out there still cares, I'm not actually gay."_ The exact nature of Holmes' and Watson's relationship has, of course, been endlessly debated, particularly in the last thirty years or so. I won't get into it here, except to aver that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not the sort of person who would write gay characters, particularly not in 1887; and I accept Holmes as an asexual person and Watson as a heterosexual one. Write whatever fanfic you want, but you won't ever convince me otherwise when it comes to the Canon.

" _Good, he thought, turning back to the unconscious American, his mouth set in a flat line, his eyes hard as flint."_ This is in a near-quote from the moment that Watson is shot in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs." In that tale, too, Holmes' feelings of friendship and loyalty are more easily inferred from his willingness to kill (or severely injure) the people who endanger the people that he cares about. "If you had killed Watson," Holmes tells the criminal on this occasion, "You would not have got out of this room alive."

" _She's got to take some time away from Baker Street. She can go and stay with her sister. Doctor's orders."_ Watson occasionally gives medical orders for Holmes to clear out of Baker Street, usually after it's clear that Holmes has worked himself into exhaustion, as in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" and "The Reigate Puzzle." Holmes, of course, invariably finds a case to occupy his attention even as he recovers, and it does him more good than Watson's prescribed rest.

" _Mrs Hudson leave Baker Street? England would fall."_ Mrs. Hudson makes only the briefest of appearances in the Canon, but all the same, there are hints at greater depth and courage to her character than perhaps might be expected—in "The Adventure of the Empty House," she assists Holmes in his mission to entrap Sebastian Moran by approaching a Holmes-dummy and—at great risk to her own person—turning it every fifteen minutes, to give the illusion of life to the dummy. There's also speculation amongst Sherlockians that she is "Martha," a servant who is employed by a German spy in "His Last Bow," but who is secretly in Holmes' employ.

" _John Hamish Watson. Just, if you're looking for baby names."_ Watson's full name is given in the canon as John H. Watson, M.D. Confusion arose in "The Man With the Twisted Lip," when Watson's wife calls him James. The general consensus is that Watson's middle name is Hamish, the Scots Gaelic version of James, and that James is his wife's affectionate nickname for him.

" _Give me a moment. I've only been on the case for eight seconds."_ Sherlock's ease in deciphering the code calls back to the canon, in _The Valley of Fear_ he tells Watson that "there are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do the apocrypha of the agony column."

" _Please don't feel obliged to tell me that was remarkable or amazing, John's expressed that the thought in every possible variant available to the English language."_ Watson is forever expressing disbelief at Holmes' deductions, only to pronounce them "Wonderful!" after they are explained to his satisfaction. Occasionally the explanation does not elicit the reaction that Holmes hopes for, as in "The Red-Headed League" when Jabez Wilson tells him, "I thought at first you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all." Watson, on the other hand, is just as amazed after the explanations as he before. (I won't cite examples because there's dozens.)

" _The wheel turns, nothing is ever new."_ Canon Holmes is "a walking calendar of crime," in Stamford's words, and Watson observes, very early after moving in with Holmes in _A Study in Scarlet_ , that he "appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century." Holmes finds it instructive and useful when he's evaluating problems to be able to compare them to similar crimes or problems from the past. He quizzes Scotland Yard detectives occasionally, or refers to cases that he thinks they should know about, and is invariably disappointed because they haven't read the same case histories he has. In _A Study in Scarlet_ , he tells Gregson to read up on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in the year '34, saying that "there is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before." This particular quote is more or less from _The Valley of Fear_ , in which Holmes remarks that "Everything comes in circles—even Professor Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals, to whom he sold his brains and his organization of a fifteen per cent commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again."

" _Sherlock knew that his brother would have been much happier to run on rail tracks, to go to and fro from work to home every day like a pendulum on a clock, but that Mycroft's immense sense of caution drove him to own a number of houses and offices…"_ There's not much reference in _Sherlock_ to Canon Mycroft's love of routine, but I had to sneak this in, because it's such an important aspect of Canon Mycroft's personality. Holmes freely admits that Mycroft is smarter than himself, though he devotes his intellect in the direction of the government, and his general laziness keeps him from following up on leads the way Holmes does, so he never achieves (nor does he want) the fame of his brother. In "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans," when he finds that Mycroft is making a rare and unscheduled visit to 221B Baker Street, Holmes says, "It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane. Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall—that is his cycle. Once, and only once, has he been here. What upheaval can possibly have derailed him?...A planet might as well leave its orbit." (Holmes having, by this time, apparently learned about the structure of the solar system.)

" _She's somehow got herself into a witness protection scheme in America."_ In the original, Irene Adler is an American (born in New Jersey), and at the end of the story, she escapes to "the Continent," rather than to America.

" _Why would he care? He despised her at the end. Won't even mention her by name. Just 'The Woman.'"_ In "A Scandal in Bohemia," Holmes' referral to Irene Adler as " _The_ Woman" is a mark of respect, not dislike. Though Holmes went up against a couple of other women in his career, Irene Adler was, perhaps, the most like himself.

" _My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?"_ Arthur Conan Doyle doesn't have much to say about Holmes' heart, either, but in "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box," Holmes allows himself a rare musing: "What is the meaning of it, Watson? What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever."

" _I will have the cameraphone, though."_ In "A Scandal in Bohemia," Irene Adler replaces the photograph that Holmes is trying to obtain with a photograph of herself in an evening gown. Holmes asks the King if he can keep the photograph, and the King willingly gives it to Holmes, who keeps it. Here, Sherlock is keeping something else that reminds him of Irene (and, incidentally, something that Irene can use to contact him with).

 **Author's Note**

 **The Problem With Irene Adler**

Irene Adler is a source of perpetual fascination to Holmesians. I admit I'm immune to most of it, though I do understand it, at least on a logical level: as Doyle says, she is "The Woman." Holmes finds her fascinating and respects her, and not many people bring that out in him. She is known as the only woman who has even beaten Holmes (even though she isn't).

In modern adaptations, she serves to solve a dilemma that adapters face when working with the Holmesian universe, which is that there are basically no women in it. I mean, there's Mrs Hudson, who never really appears "on stage" in the canon, and is only mentioned in the context of answering the door and making meals for Holmes and Watson. There's Watson's wife (or wives), who serves no narrative function—indeed, she's an obstacle, because she pulls Watson out of the dyad that the whole series is about. After _The Sign of the Four_ , in which we meet Mary Morstan, Watson's wife is only ever mentioned in the stories in the context of explaining why Watson is abandoning her to go out gallivanting with Holmes. And there are various clients, who never show up more than once. Women are very much guests in the Holmesian universe, and for modern writers of adaptations, this is a problem. So they call upon Irene Adler to pinch hit.

This is Canon Irene: she is an American-born singer of opera. She falls in love with the King of Bohemia, and he with her, but marriage isn't a possibility because she's not royalty, so he dumps her. Embittered, she apparently decides that if she can't have him, nobody can, and threatens to release a compromising picture to the world if he ever marries anyone else. But he's a king, and getting married is basically required. So he hires Holmes, and has her house burgled on multiple occasions, in an attempt to secure the picture. (And just as an aside here: far from being on the side of justice in this story, Sherlock Holmes is essentially aiding and abetting stalkerish behaviour; if this story took place today, Irene Adler would probably have a solid case for obtaining the UK version of a Personal Protective Order against the King of Bohemia). While _the king of a an entire country is conspiring against her_ , Irene gets her shit together on her own: She moves to London, performs in concerts, goes out socially (I have been dumped by lesser men than she and not handled it nearly as well, ill-considered blackmail attempt aside). She meets a man and they fall in love, and she lets go of her grudge against the King. She flees London with her husband, leaving behind a note that says that she'll only release the picture if the King comes after her in any way. (Which, don't forget, is a totally reasonable concern, since the King _has_ come after her already.)

Maybe I'm putting too fine a point on it, but I don't really consider this "beating" Holmes. She doesn't beat him because she never really sets herself against him. Quite the contrary, he spies on her, and invades her home, and attempts to steal from her. She catches on to his ruse and escapes from London, yes. She dresses in drag and follows him back to Baker Street without him realizing it. And she leaves town before Holmes can advance his plan from reconnaissance to retrieval. That's not winning, that's knowing when to quit the field. (And let's not forget that she's been evading aggressive acts from her stalker ex-boyfriend's hired guns for awhile now, and is probably on her guard all the time.) In a way, Holmes' presence in this tale is almost superfluous: Irene Adler solves her problem herself. If the King had just left her alone, he would've eventually achieved the same result. If she'd stayed in town for another day, if Holmes had been able to go back and make an attempt for the painting (instead of just locating it), would he have been successful or not? If we want to talk about women who actually beat Holmes, let's talk about Isadora Klein, who first tried to buy a house and all of its contents in order to get her hands on a manuscript that, if released, would have damaged her reputation; when that didn't work, she hired burglars to break into the house and successfully steal the manuscript, which she then burned (the manuscript, not the house) before Holmes could track her down ("The Adventure of the Three Gables").

Also, please notice: Irene is not a criminal. She's a professional singer, and a lonely, hurt woman. I'm not saying she's without fault—she did threaten to ruin the King's life and, conceivably, throw his country into turmoil and incite an international incident—but I think her threat was made in a moment of the weakness and hostility that so often accompanies the grief of being dumped, and not because she's truly a sinister or vindictive person. She's not even really a blackmailer; her threats evolve from "I will tell the world about you and me" to "Please just leave me alone." And yet, in adaptation after adaptation, writers turn her into a criminal, or a member of Moriarty's gang, or a love interest for Holmes. And in this inflation of her role, they end up diminishing her as a person.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the impulse. Besides bringing some sorely lacking female presence into these male-dominated stories, there are things that a villainess like Irene can do that a villain like Moriarty can't. But Irene Adler of the canon is her own person, making her own choices and her own way in the world. She's not an accomplice of Moriarty. In "A Scandal in Bohemia," she's smart and independent. She is aware of the power that both the King and Holmes can exert over her, of the potential for various types of coercion, and she successfully evades it. That's who she is. But in the 2009 movie _Sherlock Holmes_ , and in BBC's _Sherlock_ , and in CBS's _Elementary_ , the writers make her Moriarty's accomplice. In _Sherlock_ , she's a straight up terrorist (which I think we're not supposed to notice because she's also sexy and beguiling).

In the canon, Irene doesn't lose the game because she refuses to play. But when you make her a villain—when you make her play the game—it becomes necessary for Holmes to beat her. Watson doesn't tell the stories that don't have a solution, or the stories where Holmes loses. And however powerful you make her as a villain—whether she runs her own criminal empire, or whether she's an employee of Moriarty—Holmes must win in the end. And so Irene goes from being The Woman, the one who beats Holmes, to being just another vanquished criminal. If you make her a nemesis, she can't escape. She can't refuse to play. But the minute she's beaten, she loses her power, and her appeal as a character. She's no longer her own person. She's only a barrier, a problem for Holmes to solve.

To make her a love interest (as many pastiches and fanfics do) also diminishes her, though in a slightly different way. It means that she's only important as an accessory to Holmes—and, let's face it, lover or not, Watson already has that role. I know that most stories have a main character and the other characters spend the vast majority of their time interacting with, or furthering the agenda of, the main protagonist. But again: _Arthur Conan Doyle didn't write Irene that way_. Irene is pursuing her own agenda and crosses paths with Holmes quite outside of any motivation or desire of her own. But to make Holmes fall in love with her (or to make her fall in love with Holmes) makes her a satellite. It defines her by her relationship with Holmes, rather than by her own choices and her desire to control her own life. In "A Scandal in Bohemia," though she is a minor character, she's not a secondary one. But make her Holmes' love interest, and she is. Suddenly, her only importance lies in her importance _to him_. For the woman who is supposed to be a suitable foil—not an accessory, but a foil—this is a serious demotion.

Which sort of brings me back around to the original premise: Why do we need more females in the Holmes universe at all? Why are Irene Adler, Helen Stoner, Violet Hunter, and the others not enough? Why does _The Hobbit_ movie need a new and entirely superfluous female elf who tags along after Legolas and falls in love with a dwarf (something that probably would've startled Tolkien)? Maybe I'm the minority here, but I _do not care_ that Tolkien's world is predominantly male. I don't care that Doyle's is either. I understand that he was writing in a different time period than the one in which I live, and about a different world. I understand that Sherlock Holmes is over a hundred years old, when women had very different roles in society. I get it. I don't hold Tolkien and Doyle responsible for the misogyny of the times in which they lived. And I've been reading Tolkien since middle school. I've been reading Holmes for damn near ten years. I've been reading and watching all kinds of male-centred stories and comics and television programs and movies my whole life. And having a female character that I can relate to is great, but you know what? I've gotten pretty good at relating to male characters (better than a lot of men are able to relate to female characters, for whatever reason). I don't need adaptors of stories to give me a female character just to make me feel better. It just feels like pandering condescension. It would be really refreshing if, instead of trying to rewrite a world, an adaptor was just like, "Yeah, you know what? This is the world that the original author gave us. We're not saying it's perfect, we're not saying that it would be created the same way if it was invented today. But it's the world that exists. So let's talk about why the author created it the way he created it, instead of trying to forget that it is the way it is." Is that so hard? To just let Irene be Irene? To let Tolkien's world be as he wrote it? He wrote it that way for a reason. Let's talk about the reasons. And let's allow Irene Adler to be the badass motherfucker that she is, all on her own accord.


End file.
